But like the details of a poker hand being remembered differently by everyone involved, there exists significant conflict among accounts of just when and where hold'em emerged as an option among available variants. That's because, of course, the variant most of us think of first when we think of poker - Texas Hold'em - had yet to arrive. And in most cases, the poker games described have continued to be either draw or stud. Other representations of poker in paintings, music, literature, film and 'old time radio' carrying up through the mid-20th century (and a little further) have pushed the story closer to the present. We've considered stories of gunslingers, politicians and soldiers playing poker, including some famous fictions and literary treatments of the game as well as early strategy primers and applications of the game to business and military planning. We've discussed poker games in 19th-century saloons, on steamboats and in frontier towns. Generally speaking, just about all of the cultural expressions of poker considered thus far in this series have featured the game's earliest and most popular variants - draw and stud.
It has been updated as a feature during PokerNews' Texas Week. This article comes from the PokerNews archives and was originally published on April 04, 2017.
