Poker is one of the truly universal games. Even before the inception and widespread popularity of internet poker anyone would be hard pressed to find anyone, anywhere, who has never heard of the game, and most people have played a hand or two in their lives. Today, with several different versions of the game, some new, some old, poker is popular everywhere. In the United States poker has been played from the very founding of the nation and is an integral part of our culture. Where was the first poker played though? How did the games begin and develop into the sport that we all know today?
There are as many explanations for the origins of poker as there are people. Most scholars believe that poker originated in China about 1100 years ago by the order of Emperor Mu Tsung, who introduced what was know as Domino Cards for his wife. Other researchers and historians believe, based on card pieces found in tombs, that poker stared in the 12th and 13th centuries in Egypt. The cards found were not the poker cards that we know today. These cards were very similar to “Ganjifa”, or treasure cards, used in the Persian Empire and later up to the 16th century. Ganjifa cards came in a deck of 96 beautifully hand painted cards that are believed to have inspired the Persian game of As Nas, which is a five player, 25 card game dating from the 17th century. We do know that As Nas is the one ancient game that most closely resembles poker as it uses individual rounds of betting and hand ranking.
Regardless of where the game actually started, poker spread through Europe like wildfire. Most people don´t know that the original poker deck was inspired by the Tarot deck, the minor suits, and developed into the 52 card deck that we know today. The Tarot deck has four suits, swords, wands, cups, and coins, which match closely with our current Spades, hearts, clubs and diamonds. Some countries, when introducing the game, used other names for the suits. For instance, Switzerland uses Shields, Flowers, Bells and acorns.
In the 15th century the French introduced a game that they called “Poque” that included both bluffing and betting. This game also used a deck that was nearly identical to our modern deck, and it was the French who were given the credit for introducing the game to the Americas. Although it was called Poque, it was, for all intents and purposes, Poker. During the American Civil War, Poque became extremely popular and developed the modern versions of “Stud” and “Draw” poker, and in 1834 the game was given its unique name by a gambler named Jonathan H Green, who learned the game while serving time in a Cincinnati jail. Green called poker his “cheating game” because it effectively replaced 3-card Monte on the gambling circuit.
