One of the most popular sports to grab worldwide attention in recent years is poker. This iconic card game has featured countless times as the stage for a tense standoff between movie heroes and their foes. The tight grip on carefully shielded cards and the steady gaze as players try to out bluff their opponents has been the set-up for many an onscreen brawl or gunfight.
Now the real-life world of poker has been given a big boost by television coverage of the World Poker Series, the most prestigious title in contest poker. With card-cams that show the player’s cards and a running commentary from an expert panel as well as on-screen statistics that show the chances of victory for each hand viewers can follow every twist and turn of the play.
There are various styles of poker play and although Five-Card draw is the most common variant in Westerns the World Poker Series is played using Texas Hold‘Em rules. In Texas Hold‘Em each player is dealt just two cards and then a further five communal cards are dealt out in stages. The player who can make the highest hand using his or hers two cards and any combination of the community cards wins.
After the initial two cards are dealt to each play there is a round of betting. Three of the community cards are then dealt in the ‘flop’, followed by more betting. The ‘turn’ brings another community card to the table and further betting. Finally, the last community card is dealt as the ‘river’. A last round of betting brings the round to its climax and the highest hand wins.
One of the main attractions that Texas Hold’Em has for players and audiences alike is the high level of skill as opposed to luck involved. Not for nothing do the same faces make it to the final tables every year in the World Poker Series. As the community cards are dealt players can calculate the odds of their hand beating the others based on the available combinations.
Poker contests usually have a ‘buy in’, a fixed fee that each player pays at the start of the contest for a set number of chips. After that, each player must increase their chip count in the hope of reaching the final table. The buy in varies from contest to contest but for the final of the World Poker Series the buy in is a hefty $10,000. Nonetheless, thousands participate every year and in 2006 the first prize was $12 million dollars!
And first place is not reserved for the old timers. In 2003, Chris Moneymaker, a newcomer to the game, won first place and a prize of $7.5 million.
With such high stakes the World Series makes gripping viewing and has inspired a whole new community of players who have taken up the game using online casinos. Online play is just the same as at the tables and enables player from all over the world to get a piece of the action, even if there are no casino in their location. Many players began their poker careers playing online where they can hone their statistical skills and betting tactics before trying a brick and mortar casino.
