I hosted a poker game last weekend. It was an $11 buy-in tournament, with a $1
bounty. Most of the people who attended
had never played poker before. Some of
them knew the poker hands, but some of them needed the cards I had printed out
with the hand rankings. It was a lot of
fun teaching a bunch of people the game.
And then something amazing happened. By the end of the night, everyone knew how to
play, and they were even catching some things I had missed, with betting, and
who beat who. In the span of a few
hours, people that had never played this game were enjoying themselves. This game, which I have spent many hours
studying and practicing, can be learned in just a few hands.
That is the beauty of Texas hold’em. While it is easy to learn, it can never be
mastered. This is the requirement for a
game to stand the test of time. Just
like chess, the moves can be learned in an afternoon, but a lifetime of study
is not long enough to master the game. I
don’t know how the game was created, but whoever was responsible, I thank you!