Game Room & Gaming (04)

All About Poker
Gamble.co.uk provides many good information resources on pool. For beginners there are poker basics, such as how to play, hand rankings, a glosary of terms, game variations and basic strategy of 7 card stud. For more advanced players there is the Poker School, with information on probabilities, pre- and post-flop strategies, betting, the art of bluffing, and chip handling. There is information online poker, such as the best rooms, and poker equipment. One article discusses poker history. According to the article, the actual beginnings of poker are impossible to trace. We know for certain that a form of cheating poker, according to writer Jonathan Green, was played on Mississippi riverboats as early as 1834. This early version of poker, played with just 20 cards, was basically a form of Three Card Monte and was designed to separate players from their money as quickly as possible. Today, according to this site, poker is the most popular card game in the world, with poker tournaments taking place almost every night of the week somewhere in the world, according to this site. In addition to the fascinating history of poker, click on Poker Basics to be taken to articles covering such topics as How to Play the Game, some of the more common variations on the game, the ranking of hands, strategy for playing 7 card stud as well as a glossary of poker terms.

Blackjack History
Learn about the history of the popular card game, Blackjack. The 52-card deck was originally called the French Pack. Blackjack actually originated from French games such as "chemin de fer" and "French Ferme" and was first played in French casinos in about 1700 where it was called "vingt-et-un" (twenty-and-one). It has been played in the U.S.A since the 1800's after they, along with England adopted the 52-card deck.

For Jukebox Enthusiasts
This web page is a place to post articles and messages on the board. This particular article is geared towards jukebox enthusiasts and discusses the history of jukeboxes. The writer of the article discusses the first crude jukeboxes that appeared in the late 19th century in San Francisco. They were nickel-in-the-slot phonographs and they were immediately popular. They got their name from the term "jook house" which was a Southern term for an out-of-the-way establishment for drinking and dancing, used by field workers. The Wurlitzer company began calling its machines jukeboxes. Further down on the page, people post messages into this discussion forum about their own antique jukeboxes.

GambleCraft
GambleCraft.com is all about gambling: history, rules, analysis and strategy. It has tutorials for learning casino games and provides reviews of popular games, as well as links to software learning and playing games like poker, blackjack, craps, and roulette at home, and a link to read the web pages in Russian. It has other interesting information, such as the history of specific casino games. Roulette, for example, is a French word meaning "small wheel." One legend has Blaise Pascal inventing a wheel and his friend suggesting they use it for gambling. Another legend has a Monte Carlo casino owner inventing it by selling his soul to the devil to obtain the secret - according to that legend, that's why the numbers on the roulette wheel add up to 666. Roulette wheels started appearing in France in the late 18th century. Now roulette wheels are in every casino in the world.