A Brief Look at the History of Poker

A Brief Look at the History of Poker
To a person coming across it for the first time, poker tends to look like a very young game. Perhaps it is the fact that it is played with cards (which look very modern), usually with trendy sounding names, or the fact that is a game wildly loved by youngsters or something like that, which is to account for the popular notion that poker is a 'young' game. In actual fact, though, it is one very old game, as a brief look at the history of poker will reveal.
According to scholars who have dedicated much of their time to the study of the history of poker, it would seem that its roots are in an olden German game known as Pochspiel, which could possibly even give us hints to the origin of its name. Pochspiel was played as far back as the medieval ages (the 1400s), and its similarity to what we know as poker today is not a matter of conjecture. It was a game like poker in virtually all ways; complete with the placement of bets and the valuation of hands to determine winners. There are those who feel that the attempts to tie down the name poker to Pochspiel are far-drawn, showing other French and German words that bear closer resemblance, and which would therefore be the words from which the name poker was derived.
Whatever its roots, it would seem that poker was widely being played in a number of parts of the world (especially in the United States) by the time the industrial revolution was at its height, though probably under other names. American literature from the 1800s is especially awash with descriptions of what are obviously games of poker being played.
It would seem that 1850s were when the 52-card deck, which is the standard for poker world-wide, was introduced as the basic poker playing tool. The American Civil War, pitting states that wanted to be part of the union against those that wanted to secede would seem to be a period during which many developments were added to poker, to make it the game we know today. By 1925, we were already having community games of poker, with the 1970s seeing a level of development where we had what were, for all purposes and intents, global poker tournaments. The 70s would also be the period when books teaching poker were first published, with the 80s being a period of quiet growth for poker, and also a period during which the game truly went global.
The 1990s were another period of tremendous growth for poker. This would be when the Internet was evolving from an academia-military collaboration tool, to an informational platform for the masses, and eventually a social platform by the late 90s. This would also be the time when first attempts were made for online poker, with the first real game of online poker being played in 1998.
We don't know what comes next, but this is pretty much where we find ourselves at: with the development and exponential growth in online poker being the last major event we have witnessed in the history of poker.