Widely cited as the most popular version of the fantastic casino card game poker, Texas Hold Em is played around the world by people of all ages. Young or old, new or experienced and for real money or play money, Texas Hold Em is one of the best types of poker to play and can be extremely lucrative if one can play well.

Known commonly as simply Hold Em, Texas Hold Ems history can be dated back effectively to the early 1900s to Robstown, Texas, United States of America. Whilst most believe that the games history reaches further back than this, the early 1900s were when the state of Texas officially recognised Texas Hold Em as a card game.

During the following years, Texas Hold Em became massively popular and by the mid-1960s it had reached the hallowed gambling ground of Las Vegas. Unbeknown to most at the time, Texas Hold Em was to become the biggest played card game in the world. However, there were a few people who could see the games potential, most famously Crandell Adlington, a well-known gambler who said when he first saw Texas Hold Em being played in the late 1950s, he realised that if it were to be taken to the masses, it would become the number one game to play.

Somewhat surprisingly, Texas Hold Em poker wasnt overly popular at first in Las Vegas. Played only in small game rooms in casinos that were mostly off The Strip, this actually proved vital to the games future success. Due to the lack of popularity in the beginning, many professional poker players such as Amarillo Slim and Doyle Brunson studied the game and became experts, beating almost everyone who they played against. Seeing the amounts of money this duo was winning and the amount of people following the two players, casinos along The Strip started paying more attention to Texas Hold Em and more and more tables were being opened up for dedicated Texas Hold Em games. By the middle of the 1980s, Texas Hold Em was dominating the Las Vegas poker scene and was becoming increasingly popular, for the first time since its origin, outside of the state of Nevada.

One of the primary reasons why so many people love Texas Hold Em is that it is not simply a gambling game. Due to the four opportunities of betting throughout the game, it is possible for players to operate much more strategically and therefore have the chance to earn a great deal of money much more quickly against newer Texas Hold Em players.

There are many different tactics that professional Texas Hold Em players put into practice, each varying slightly from the last. From taking count of their chance of winning the hand from the pre-flop, players will then continue to look at their odds of winning throughout each hand, bluffing where necessary. It has to be noted that most professional Texas Hold Em players will study and memorise their chances of winning the hand prior to playing regularly, which is one of the primary mistakes most amateur-professional players make.

Virgin Games provide gaming services worldwide offering

Casino,

Bingo and

Poker games