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Texas Hold’em
Texas Hold’em is a poker game played with a standard deck of playing cards, where each player is dealt two cards, and then there are 5 community cards, each player uses those seven cards to produce the best 5 card hand.

Poker Hand Rankings
Royal Flush (10 through Ace of the same suit)

Straight Flush (any 5 cards in a row of the same suit)

Four of a Kind (4 of the same Card)

Full House (3 of one card and two of another, I.E.:( 4 of diamonds, 4 of clubs, 4 of spades, 2 of clubs, 2 of spades))

Flush (Any 5 cards of the same suit)

Straight (Any 5 cards in numerical order)

Three of a kind (3 of the same card)

A Pair (2 of the same card)

High Card

The History Of Texas Hold’em
Early On Texas holdem was an underground activity, it was common to find gamblers who would travel hundreds of miles to get into a high stakes game, then with the creation of the WSOP, all of the high rollers could compete to see who was the best in a 10000 dollar buyin tournament. The game of Texas Hold’em has unknown origins, the first games are thought to have been played in texas saloons, gamblers would come from hundreds of miles away to get into the action. According to Doyle Brunson’s Super system, Doyle and his partners, Ammarillo Slim, and Sailor Roberts used to travel all throughout texas during the 1950’s and 60’s fleecing the locals of their money in high stakes games. The games were not regulated and payment relied on the word of the gamblers. But in Doyle’s own words, “without his word, a gambler is useless” .: Back in these times gamblers often traveled in groups and were usually armed to reduce the changes of them getting robbed. Those were dangerous times for gamblers moving throughout Texas. in 1970 Benny Binion invited six of the best hold’em players to come compete in a tournament he was hosting in his Horseshoe Casino, a staggering 10,000 dollar buyin led to the tournament being regarded as the World Series of Poker.

W.S.O.P.
The world series grew slowly it many years for the tournament to grow because not many people were willing to pony up the 10,000 dollar buy in. But the world series is the largest and most profitable tournament held in the world. with over 6800 entrants in 2008. A prize Pool of over 65 Million Dollars, with first place taking home over 9 million dollars. the growth of the world series can mainly be attributed to two key factors, The online poker boom and the 2003 world series where Chris Moneymaker, an unknown player who had won his entry in a 40 dollar satalite tournament took home a staggering 2.3 million dollars for first prize.

Online Poker
The media and Online Poker have led to poker being the most popular poker game in the world Online poker breathed new life into the poker industry, with the advent of the internet game players were able to play from the comfort of home, and no longer were there a select few players, with over 100 thousand players online during peak hours at pokerstars.com, online poker rooms are the biggest gambling arenas in the world. Although illegal in the united states, online poker is still booming, sites are still accepting players from America every day. With such a large player base it is very easy for average players to learn and master the game through countless hours of practice With the advent of televising large tournaments, average Americans were learning poker through watching the pro’s. With the availability of games provided by the online poker sites, players are able to sharpen their skills with numerous opponents all over the world. The online poker revolution has brought poker to the forefront of American gambling scene Poker started as an underground game and now it is everywhere from the internet to Card rooms all over the country, the American society has truly embraced poker both in brick and mortar poker rooms and on the internet. The beauty of poker is even a novice can beat a professional.

Famous Poker Quotes
Matt Damon said in Rounders, “I’d rather be lucky than good every day of the week.”

Differences in Tournament V.s. Cash Game Play
Although the same basic rules and structures of the game apply to both tournaments and cash games, you will soon find that playing in these different games with the same strategy will not be most profitable approach. If you want to succeed in both forms of poker you will need to adapt your playing style to the situation.

A successful cash-game specialist will probably be a winner in tournaments as well, but is not likely to achieve a win rate comparable to an experienced tournament player. The tight-aggressive playing style that is widely recommended in poker books and articles is generally a winning style in cash games, but playing too tight could be a mistake in tournaments - depending on the current stage.

Tournament Considerations
In the early stages of a tournament you are usually better off not taking any chances and sticking to the best starting hands unless the circumstances are special, like in a re-buy or winner-take-all tournament. The goal of a poker tournament is to survive until the very end, a fact that is often overlooked by many players. Building a big stack is important, but while the blinds are still small you will risk a lot to win a little.

Assuming the game is no-limit holdem, you always risk your entire stack any time you decide to play a hand. Combined with the fact that the blinds are too small to be worth stealing, it's better to play only the best starting hands in the early stages of the tournament. As the blinds increase the situation changes, however and if your stack is still small you may need to loosen up your play considerably in order to survive.