Which Poker Site is Best for Playing Texas Holdem Online
This is a tough question, not best suited for a single recommendation. For starters, there are US Poker Sites which tend to accept players from all over the world, and there are poker sites that cater to specific markets. If you’re in UK, Canada, or Australia, wouldn’t you rather play poker in GBP, CAD, or AUD? Same goes for Euro Poker sites or even poker sites that support Asian currencies. Poker is a global game, and finding a site that caters to your market is the best first step; our currency page can be found here.
The next thing to consider is whether or not the poker site is compatible. Depending on your OS you might be interested in our pages on Mac Poker Sites, Linux Poker Sites or even sites compatible with Ubuntu. If you’re using Windows, don’t worry; all poker sites covered on this page offer online Texas Hold’em games that are Windows compatible. Next in the decision chain is whether you want to play using downloadable software or whether you’d rather use the no download, flash version. However, if you expect to also play on your mobile device, you’ll want to read our page on Mobile Poker. Also, we assume you’re interested in real money poker, which is what most of our website covers; if you’re looking for free games, click here.
Understand there are many other factors involved in choosing an online poker site. If you play mostly cash games you’ll probably want to learn about the best VIP programs. If you play tournaments – leader board promotions, guaranteed prize pools, and the various types of sit and goes such as double or nothing, and jackpot pot sit and goes are probably the topics that will most interest you. Or perhaps you’re looking to win a WSOP seat online. Our website has more than 100 pages on poker site intricacies. While we dedicate the rest of our homepage to Texas Hold’em history, be sure to navigate to and read other pages of our site to learn all you’ll want to know and more about playing texas holdem online.
Legal Online Poker
TexasHoldemOnline.com has a complete section specifically for state laws. Below you will find a list of the most popular legal pages on our site. If your state is not listed, please use this link to visit our main USA poker page. Each state page provides a detailed review of the current legislature in place for online gambling and poker.
- Delaware Poker Laws
- Poker Sites in Florida
- Poker Laws in the State of Georgia
- Legal Poker Sites in Idaho
- Indiana Online Poker Laws
- Iowa Poker Laws
- Poker Sites in Kentucky
- Legal Poker in Louisiana
- Poker Sites in Maine
- Maryland Poker Sites
Texas Hold’em Made for Online Play
Texas Holdem is the most popular variant of poker, but this is a relatively new fact. While draw poker has existed for hundreds of years and stud poker 150+, Texas Hold’em is only decades old, AND – only since the internet and home computer boom has this has become the dominate game of choice. I’ll cover the impact of the internet on Holdem in this section, but first let me briefly cover the game’s history.
In 2007, Texas Legislature declared Robstown, Texas the birthplace of Texas hold’em with an origin date of approximately 1925. If this is true, the game wasn’t popular. This date was a guess based on Johnny Moss claiming he played the game in Dallas sometime in the 1930’s. It’s worth pointing out the most respected book on poker games, Foster’s Complete Hoyle, was published in 1963 with no mention of the game Hold’em. It did however mention Cincinnati which is played the same but with five hole cards of which any from the hand and board could be used.
While whoever invented Texas Hold’em is unknown, we do know it was Crandell Addington that put in on the map. He discovered hold’em in 1959, and introduced it to backroom games in Fort Worth. In time he befriended his biggest competitors to the funds of rich businessmen and oil tycoons, these competitors were none other than Roscoe Weiser, Doyle Brunson, and Amarillo Slim. In 1967 the four relocated to Las Vegas together and started a regular holdem game at Golden Nugget downtown. Even though this was the only place the game was spread in Vegas, when the first ever poker tournament took place in 1969 – hold’em was the main event. This was won by Crandell Addington and the following year the same tournament became known as the World Series of Poker (WSOP).
Although the WSOP helped spread Texas Hold’em, this wasn’t even close to the most popular game of choice. It was one of many options, and while a bit more popular in Vegas and parts of California, everywhere else it was a distant second to 7 Card Stud. In fact, I can recall in the 1990’s at East Coast casinos no greater than 20% of the tables were of the holdem variety. Where the game really got big was the internet.
The movie Rounders no doubt helped with the poker boom, but this movie was released in September 1998. The same with televised poker! While the WSOP aired a version without hole cards seen (hole-card came started in the US in 2002) this was just a one hour episode each year that didn’t gather much attention. While this and others were earlier contributors, what really got the game started was real money online poker which was invented by Randy Blumer. The original website was planetpoker.com (no longer offering real money play) and the first ever hand of real money internet poker occurred here on January 1, 1998 at a $3/$6 Fixed Limit Holdem table.
And what happened from here? The $10,000 buy-in WSOP main event had never previously had more than a few hundred entrants. In 1998 it had 350. The years that followed were 393, 512, 613, 631 and in 2003 there were 839 entrants. What was happening is online poker sites were offering chances to win a WSOP seat online, and this kept increasing the player pool. When that 839 player Main Event ended in 2003, the real online poker boom took full flight. This year an accountant from Tennessee, perfectly named Chris Moneymaker successfully parlayed a $39.00 online poker satellite to a Main Event entry and then gold bracelet, winning first place and $2.5 million in prize money.
This made for great TV and the popularity of poker then exploded with countless poker television shows and young adult wanting the chance to be the next Chris Moneymaker. From 839 entrants in 2003, the number of entrants grew to 2,576 in 2004, in 5,619 in 2005 and 8,773 in 2006. Although the numbers are down slightly, in 2011 Pius Heinz topped a field of 6,865 entries to become the World Champion, winning the gold bracelet and $8,715,638. The WSOP is available in Europe although it goes under the acronym WSOPE. You can have a look at this site http://www.pokeronline.de/ for more information.
From small game played in backrooms of Fort Worth, to a single game at the Golden Nugget, to the first WSOP which had 7 entrants, it was no doubt the internet that made Texas Holdem the game of choice. Initially it seeded players to the WSOP, as a result, televised poker caught on, and all everyone seen, the fame, glory and thoughts of riches, were focused on the Hold’em variant. This is a great game, with rich in history that’s still being made. We’re glad to be part of it and have set our sights high with the aim to become the internet’s number one guide to playing Texas Holdem Online! We hope you enjoy our website and wish you the right side of variance in all of life. Thanks for reading, sincerely – THO Staff.
