Poker has gained much popularity over the past few years. I doubt that many tournament poker players ever thought they would featured on ESPN. The rise of online poker has played a large role in the increasing visibility of the sport. There are three major variants of the game of poker.
The first is draw poker, where a player receives a hand of five or seven cards. The player may then elect to discard some of his cards, replacing them with new ones. Draw poker has an emphasis on betting and psychology. Since no cards are showing, there is little card-based math involved.
Stud poker is different in a few ways. First, there is no opportunity to discard your hand. Second, some of your cards and your opponent’s cards are showing. Most commonly, players bet every round, whether the card is dealt face-up or face-down. This game favours players who have good math skills, as they can deduce the probabilities of certain combinations of cards, since the cards are right there in front of them.
In recent years, the most popular of the variants is called community card poker. The most popular version, Texas hold ’em begins with each player being dealt two cards face-down. After a round of betting, three community cards are dealt face-up. Players bet and one more community card is dealt. After another round of betting, the final community card is dealt, and the player with the strongest hand is the winner.
There are several reasons for the popularity of online poker. Poker rooms are not found in all casinos because the margins are much lower than for other forms of gambling. New players can log in and play for free on many sites, rather than going to a casino and paying money to play a game they have never played before. Online poker is different than traditional poker in many ways. One key difference is that traditional poker players read body language to gain insight about their opponent’s hand. This is not possible for online poker games. Online poker players have a variety of other tools available. Computers can be programmed to rapidly perform analysis on hand history, bet history, and other factors that players can use to win. The popularity of online poker exploded after in 2003, a player named Chris Moneymaker went on to win the World Series of Poker after he had his entry fee paid for by winning an online tournament. It was his first tournament that was not played online, and many other online players were encouraged by his success.
By stickystebee
Articel written by Lucy for BlueSQ Poker