The Origins of Poker - Shrouded in Mystery

Tabernac!

Poker and the guillotine are France's only two worthwhile contributions to humanity... or so I thought.  If you'd asked me last night (up until about 11pm) I would have sworn by the moon and all the gold in the temple that the glorious game of poker was French in origin.  This may not be true, however, as the most reliable source of factual information currently available, Wikipedia, tells a different story.  It is a story of deep intrigue, mystery, and drunken boredom. 

This tale takes place after a delightful evening of fine sushi dining and Japanese beer chugging.  Having consumed one bottle of every kind Japan has to offer, me, my wife, and entourage, decided to cleanse our palates with the cheapest swill we could find at the local liquor store.  Given that my entourage consists mostly of computer jerks, it goes without saying that we are a socially retarded lot with mildly autistic tendencies.  Alcohol alone is not enough to lubricate sensible social interaction within a degenerate group such as this.  As such, we all felt compelled to play a game, which is a practice I loathe, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

Poker was our only option, because I hate board games and don't own any.  But matters were complicated somewhat when it was discovered that none of us had any cash, an element, without which, makes poker totally pointless.  Without a cash incentive and the cognitive wherewithal to maintain focus on a standard game of Texas Hold 'Em, things got goofy.  Since no one cared anyway, I suggested we kick it old school and play the game in what I believed to be its most primitive form: poque, which is a dirty French word for faire l'amour.

With that, we all unleashed our abrasive French personae, complete with French accents and obnoxious French laughter.  The only thing missing was the oppressive, lingering body odour, thinly veiled by stale cigarette smoke and Axe Body Spray.  Correction: we were still missing one thing... the rules to poque.  This didn't turn out to be much of a problem though, because there were no Frenchmen around to look down their noses and tell us we were doing it wrong.  The rules we cooked up actually made the game pretty fun, and fully comprehensible to our unsettled minds. 

Here are the rules, in a nutshell:

1. Standard poker hand ranks and dealing practices apply.
2. Players all place their antes in the pot before the cards are dealt.  The ante doubles every 10-15 minutes, as with the blinds in Texas Hold 'Em.
3. Five cards are dealt to every player.  There are no draws and no community cards.
4. The player to the left of the dealer is the first to bet.  Subsequent players may check, bet, raise, and re-raise, as appropriate to other poker derivations.
5. Once betting is complete, players reveal their hands.
6. The best hand takes the pot!

That's it!  So simple that even a group of culturally insensitive drunkards can conceive, dictate, and master the rules in minutes.

Although the assumed origins of poker were incorrect, it is not difficult to suppose that the most primitive form of the game would have been structurally similar to that described above.  (Also, it should be noted that these rules are basically mirrored by a poker derivative Wikipedia calls Straight, but for which it offers minimal background information).  Supposing incipient poker was similar, it is interesting to observe how the game has evolved from a form that reveals a very limited amount of information to the players, into something where more and more is made available.  For example, compare Five-Card Draw to Texas Hold 'Em, which is arguably the most popular form.  The latter affords much more data, which in turn gives the player much more information to work (or contend) with.  Does the availability of game data contribute to its popularity?  If so, what new forms of poker are on the horizon?