From Draw and Stud Poker, to Plain POker

As time passed by it has been developed and enhanced by evolution and now takes its modern form to better fit in the 21st century. The human body? No. Poker.

Poker "big bang" happened way back 1829, according to known records. But then, come the 19th century, some major breakthroughs and transformations took place that gradually gave poker the form it has come to be known today. The developments in the American Civil War marked the beginning of such poker innovations. In 1864, cowboys in Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois started playing with the poker card version they called "stud." They sometimes also called it "stud horse poker."

The notorious "jack pots" also came into being---cowboys being wild and adventurous---where a poker player with double jack cards (or better cards) were the only ones allowed to open cards. In fact, they were obligated by the odd poker ruling to reveal cards. This was allegedly a stricture measure to keep wild bettors out of the game and goad overly cautious poker players with good hands to open and go for the pot.

Jack pot was hotly debated in poker circles, especially when the Civil War tended to pit separatists from the Union, tagging poker and jack pot along the political debate. Some said jackpot was a separatist original, the others said it was basically Unionist. Then, in 1897, some quarters maintained that jack pot took all the fun of vying and bluffing away and practically made it a card game for the unimaginative. But some sectors also say that the advent of draw poker and the jack pot were practical means to further use talent and imagination in improving the hand (draw poker) and as means of disciplining the card game (jack pot).

In 1875, draw and stud poker, along with the "virtues" of the new jack pot component in poker, rode on the emerging wave of popularity along with the all-new Whiskey card game being passed of as a poker variant. The complete variety of poker winning card combinations as we know them today was also making headway in the official gambling scene. At this time, the idea was that four of a kind in poker was the winning card combination as long as there were no straights around.

American poker had a lot of pressures and changes (and even a revolution) to undergo before finally emerging as the poker that we know it to be today.