Online poker is one of the world’s most popular games, and with all the welcome bonuses from the big sites like Titan Poker, it’s not surprising that more people are starting to play poker every day.
So, for all you poker fans old and new out there, here are ten random trivia facts about the game of poker.
Top 10 Trivia Facts about Poker
- Former US President Richard Nixon was a keen poker player who funded his first congress campaign using his own money that he’d won in a poker game. He won $6000 playing his Navy friends and then won his way into political office.
- In a standard deck of 52 cards there exist 2,598,960 possible poker hands. You’d have to play a lot of games to hold every possible hand!
- Today’s World Series of Poker started out as a two person game between Nick the Greek Dandolos and Johnny Moss. The two played almost every variation of poker in a series of matches set up as a tourist attraction in the first five months of 1951. The two players were inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 1979.
- Two black aces and two black eights are known as a ‘dead man’s hand’ in poker. It’s the hand Wild Bill Hickok was holding when he was shot dead by James McCall on 2 August 1876 in the Nutall and Mann’s Saloon No. 10 in South Dakota.
- After the French Revolution, the new government removed kings, queens and jacks from playing cards as the people didn’t want their games to honor royalty in any way. However, Napoleon restored the picture cards back to royal faces in 1805 and they’ve stayed there ever since!
- Groucho Marx the comedian got his nickname not because of his moodiness, but because he carried his poker playing funds around his neck in a pouch called a ‘grouch bag’.
- In 1937, a fifth suit was added to the usual deck of cards. However, the idea was soon dropped as people were unwilling to buy a whole new deck of cards.
- The ‘river card’ owes its name to poker games being played on river boats. A cheat would often conceal a fifth card in their sleeve and deal it when they needed to improve their hand. If caught the cheat would be thrown into the river – and the fifth card gradually became known as ‘the river’.
- Texas Hold’em is the most played version of poker. Its supremacy came along with the advent of online poker – before then, Seven Card Stud was the most played poker game in the USA.
- There’s no need to put real money down to play poker today. Many poker sites offer members the option of playing in freerolls – where you play for free, but still stand to win real cash prizes. It’s a great place to develop your poker playing skills without risking any real cash!
