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How Does Poker Present a Unique Challenge?

The three most popular games of skill in casinos are blackjack, video poker, and poker. Of these, blackjack and video poker are played against the house. As challenging as they are, the only true human factor in the game is the player himself or herself.

Even in blackjack at a land-based casino, where the other players might complain that your moves are costing them hands, if you don’t let yourself be intimidated, you and you alone create the human element in the outcome of any hand.

Video poker is similar and there are not even other players to try to change your strategy to help them. Only in poker itself are you challenged by other players. You pit your skill against their skill and in this area, there is a great deal of expertise to develop and employ at the poker table.

Thus, one of the reasons that poker online is so popular is because it is so challenging and requires skill.

You can play it for penny stakes with your pals and these games can last all night until the winners take the losers to breakfast. Or you can play against strangers.  Playing against strangers is a massive challenge since the group of people who are strangers to you is so vast and the subtle or not so subtle individual characteristics of people are very broad, indeed.

Is Poker About Psychology or Strategy?

The challenge to outsmart opponents is one of the great attractions of this game. It has been called a bluffing game and it is. A bluff that doesn’t fool anyone is not a bluff at all. So, when a poker player chooses to bluff, he or she needs to be absolutely sure that the opponents are primed in some way for the bluff.

Some players do not like to bluff. They worry that their bluffs will always be discovered. This may be true in many cases. One reason that poker is so popular is that it forces players to play outside of their comfort zone to their betterment.

Since people have so many different personalities and character traits, it is a superhuman challenge to be able to fool or misdirect so many of them in session after session.

Tilt is an Enemy of Every Poker Buff

The other side of the bluffing coin, is when poker players are either bluffed out of winning hands, especially by neophyte players, or when they suffer a bad beat.

When a player allows himself to tilt after a poorly played hand or a bad beat, they send a message to the others that they are weak minded players.

Sharp opponents can take advantage of weak players. So, being in control of your emotions is a major element in this king of games. If you can control your emotions, you will find the action to be even more fun than you thought! That is the upside of accepting difficult challenges and meeting them head on!

Can Poker Train Our Minds to Think Quickly?

Even in penny ante poker games, players need to think on their feet, so to speak. No one wants to wait a long time for a player to make up her or his mind. In chess, there is a clock for the first 40 moves and many games are won or lost because one player got into “time trouble”.

If you work in a profession in which quick thinking is a must, then this is a great “game” that can help you stay sharp even when you are “playing”.

Logic problems and logical games have been shown to increase brain function. There is even some evidence that these games may ward off the causes of dementia or Alzheimer’s. This latter feeling may just be incidental; there may be some correlation without causation. Still, the good feeling we get when we play must has some salutary effect.

Poker is Deep within Our Culture

English has many terms that had their start in poker. Here, are a few examples.

Keeping your poker face means to show no emotion or reaction even when pressured by your boss, spouse, the police, or your neighbor.

Four flusher is a person who doesn’t keep his or her word. It comes from poker players who never fold four to a flush.

To stack the deck means to cheat. To go all in has become the everyday way of saying that we are fully committed to a given course of action. To call someone’s bluff may be used in sales and other forms of negotiations.

To put your cards on the table means to finally show the bottom line as far as you are concerned. There are many, many more terms used in everyday life in English that had their start as poker terms.

Poker started hundreds of years ago, but in a form far from the game type we associate with poker today.

It started in Persia or in China. There is no absolute agreement as to exactly where.  It travelled to North America on French trading vessels that landed at the port of New Orleans in the 18th century.

From China to the Wild West

Poker travelled north on the legendary Mississippi River in riverboats and then went west along with the young men and women and grew with the nation!

Only after poker had been established as the card game of the Wild West did it make its way to the so-called “civilized” parlors of New York City. So, poker has always been associated with the rabble-rousing, hardworking, pioneers of the American west.