ARTICLES
The Rise of Poker: Railbirds and Raisers
If you are not playing poker, you may soon be in the minority. The game has come a long way from the dangerous days of the road gamblers and prohibited backroom games. It is true that those two things still exist in some places, but the game itself has been propelled into limelight and into legitimate status, due in large part to shows such as the World Poker Tour (Travel Channel) and the World Series of Poker (ESPN).
According to America's Poker Face, an article by Betsy Streisand (USNews.com, 2004), the number of poker players in America has increased to about 80 million, a 30 million increase over the estimated 50 million players just a few years ago. Most of these players still play brick-and-mortar poker (in home games and casinos), but the number of players now taking advantage of the convenience of online poker games is rapidly growing. It is estimated that there are over one million players playing online at well over 1,500 sites. The lobby area of two major sites, PartyPoker.com and PokerStars.com, regularly show over 60,000 and 40,000 players online, respectively. These types of numbers are only expected to explode over the next...
Read more
Why TV Poker Can Make You Wealthy!
There’s an awful lot of poker on the television these days. If you wanted to you could probably watch poker on the TV almost round the clock and the big events like the World Poker Tour and the World Series of Poker receive massive coverage.
Poker is great to watch on TV, it is about psychology and people more than it’s about the cards and so it attracts a large percentage of non-players. People love watching other people in real situations and poker is the latest reality TV craze.
The apparent simplicity of Texas Holdem draws the TV audience and holds them, like all great games and sports it is incredibly simple to understand but extremely difficult to master. Everyone from teenagers to grannies can work out the basics – three of something beats two of them! It’s only a short step to fill in the other hands on the ranking table.
TV Texas Holdem also has a very powerful addictiveness about it. Very quickly you will start to like some players more than others, in some cases people will become fans of certain players and follow their progress. If you start watching early on in a tournament, poker has...
Read more













