Texas Hold em is a kind of poker in which each player is dealt two cards face down and then five cards face up in the center of the table. The two cards that are face down on the table are called hole cards, while the five other cards that are face up are called board cards. Each player shares these five board cards to make the best five-card hand from the cards in the hole and the cards on the board. In other words, players combine any number of their personal cards with the shared cards in order to make the highest five-card hand according to standard hand rankings.
Like all variants of poker, individuals compete for an amount of money contributed by the players themselves, which is known as the pot. Because the cards are dealt randomly and outside the control of the players, each player attempts to control the amount of money in the pot based on the hand the player holds.
Known as the Cadillac of Poker, little is known about the invention of Texas Hold em Poker. According to the Texas State Legislature, the game was born in Robstown, Texas during the early 1900s. After it was invented and gained fame throughout Texas, it was then introduced to Las Vegas in 1967 by a group of Texan gamblers and card players. The first ever poker tournament took place in 1969 during the Second Annual Gambling Fraternity Convention. The game gradually gained more fame until it was introduced to European card players in the early 1980s.
