How Did Hold'em Become THE Game to Play?

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If you can believe it, there was a time when “poker” was not synonymous with “No Limit Texas Hold’em”.

That may seem strange now, but it wasn’t that long ago that the poker game of choice in rooms across the nation was mostly 7-card Stud High. And even if Hold’em was known to players, it was treated more as an object of reverence than as a game to be played on a daily basis. The fact that legends such as Doyle Brunson are on record as referring to Hold’em as the “Cadillac” of poker basically tells us all that we need to know.

Today, it might not be entirely inaccurate to use the same description for the poker variant that has taken the world by storm. But if the characterization used to denote respect for such an aggressive, swingy game, today it simply means that most of us don’t think of Hold’em as a “form” of poker - we just think of it as “Poker”.

Below, are the three biggest reasons I think that Hold’em is no longer “A” poker game to play, but rather “THE” poker game to play.

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Hold’em Generates Tons of Action

In the classic poker movie Rounders, Mike McDermott explains how to play No Limit Texas Hold’em with a single quote from Doyle Brunson’s legendary poker theory book“Super System”:

Even though this quote might be slightly out of step with current poker theory when taken at face value, the underlying assumption about the nature of No-Limit Hold’em is sound even today. The fact is that without any betting caps on any street, No-Limit Hold’em is built for action junkies. Aggression is encouraged, and without a doubt a key to playing the game profitably.

What’s ironic is that the aggressive nature of the game - and the huge swings in fortune that result - used to make it feared by players. Today, it’s exactly that violent emotional and strategic component that hooks players and keeps them coming back for more.

Hold’em Makes for Great TV or Live Streams

It’s not only exciting to be in the thick of all the action that No-Limit Hold’em offers to players - it can also be a ton of fun to watch the carnage unfold.

For starters, the rules of the game make it very easy to follow along. Unlike the four card hands of Omaha, or the mess of face down cards all over the felt in Stud, a Hold’em hand is clean and orderly. Everyone gets dealt two cards, five cards get neatly placed in the center…and that’s it. This symmetric simplicity definitely makes for easy viewing.

Second, the massive pots and dramatic suckouts make for huge drama. The electricity that fills a broadcast when viewers know that tens of thousands of dollars rest on the result of a single river card creates suspense of the highest order. No-Limit Hold’em provides equal - if not more - opportunity for those “heart-in-your-throat” moments than any of the best fictional dramas out there.

Finally, all of this chaos makes for highly emotional situations that often end in confrontation. While I don’t mean to glorify these moments, no one can deny that the occasional Phil Hellmuth blowup makes great viewing for our darker angels.

Hold’em is simple to learn, but impossible to master

All of the entertainment value in the world wouldn’t be enough to make No-Limit Hold’em as popular as it is.

People want to emulate what they see on their TV/Live Stream, and Hold’em definitely provides them the opportunity to do just that. Unlike Stud where you have to commit folded cards to memory, or Omaha where amateurs can have trouble figuring out what their best hand is, it only takes a few orbits around the table to understand the basic flow and rules of a No-Limit Hold’em game.

But if it’s easy for amateurs to pick up, it’s equally a difficult for veterans to master. Unlike Omaha with it’s huge emphasis on luck, or Stud where the cards can sometime dictate the outcome, No-Limit Hold’em is a violently aggressive, unpredictable game. The fact that you can lose all of your chips at any moment means that the variety of situations you can find yourself in are nearly infinite.

It’s the perfect match of luck and skill, and one that requires players to constantly learn and adapt, keeping them on their toes for an entire lifetime.

The essence of No-Limit Texas Hold’em

In the end, what really causes players to fall in love with the game is that it’s just a lot of fun. The beautiful, complicated, chaos of No-Limit Hold’em has fascinated different ages of poker players in different ways - but the allure has always been there. It’s no surprise that it set off the poker boom and has been playing king-maker ever since.

Today, the celebrity and mythology that has grown around the game have cemented its place at the center of the mainstream poker world. It’s a system that feeds on itself, guaranteeing that the future best and brightest poker minds will undoubtedly turn their attention to No-Limit Hold’em as well.

Event though more hard-core fans of the game may grumble that this single version of poker gets too much attention, they should take solace in the fact that by bringing poker into the mainstream consciousness, No-Limit Hold’em has actually been great for all variants. It’s a fitting fate for a game that requires courage, skill, and luck - all the things that always have, and always will, make poker such a wonderful game to play.