Poker Anyone?

It's a far stretch from the illegal back room poker games to what poker is now. Poker made the evolutionary jump from being viewed as a game in 2003 to being viewed as a sport in the United States. This mainstream acceptance was due to increased media coverage of high-stakes poker tournaments such as the World Series of Poker and various tournaments on the World Poker Tour.

Although there are a wide variety of ways that poker can be played, the tournament format covered by all of these entities is Texas No Limit Hold’em. In high stakes games, Hold’em is simply the most exciting format of poker, especially when an audience is watching.

With online poker being readily accessible for almost everyone, the number of players has expanded to the unlimited and young and old, women and men enjoy it. Contradictory to what many think, poker is not a game of chance but of mathematical probability and good knowledge of "reading" peoples' behavior. For this reason many poker players wear dark glasses or some form of hat to hide their expressions.

For me, it's a game I am enjoying learning, one where I have to use my brain cells and even though I'm a real novice I get fired up when I feel I have a winning hand, usually one which doesn't coincide with a traditional winners hand.

But....seeing as I don't play for money, I take the risk and several times have found myself winning that certain hand. I haven't figured out yet if that's due to luck or being talented at it so I'll leave that in the middle but the exhilarated feeling remains all the same.

I've been thinking about starting a ladies poker night once a month...anyone care to join?