I've wondered the same thing about poker recently. I suspect the recent rise of poker may have come from a few movies, namely Rounders; after all, why is it that Texas Hold'em is so popular in particular - it isn't simply that poker is popular. But the other reason is probably the very presence of these on-line playing rooms. Add the addictive qualities of a computer (game) to the already addictive qualities of gambling, and voila! If that movie had been popular in say the 1970s, or if recent advent of these on-line poker rooms didn't come with some mainstream popular force driving an interest, maybe it wouldn't have taken off quite as it has. Whether it's hear to stay, I don't know. I've been waiting for a decade for hip-hop to go away, but that seems to be a cultural mainstay as well.

I've never seen Rounders! I gotta check it out.

Well, Texas Hold 'Em itself is no mystery; Hold 'Em is popular because poker is popular. Long before any sort of mainstream popularity, Hold 'Em was the hands-down (too lazy to look it up, but I'll put down 40 bucks that says that's a poker lending) game of choice for the majority of poker experts and afficianados. After all, it's been the main game at the World Series for just about ever. I remember before the most recent poker boom, hearing people talk about Hold 'Em as the most sophisticated and skill-demanding even as I didn't know how to play anything other than 5-card draw. So it stands to reason that if you're going to publicize and televize professional poker, the game which the vast majority of professional poker players play the most is going to be the variant to achieve popularity.

And speaking of the World Series of poker should remind one that that poker has actually been on the rise for a while now; poker in America has experienced three or four growth spurts or large bumps; the current one is, of course, orders of magnitude greater than any of the previous ones.

I'd suspect that poker's popularity will be slightly more enduring than some other fads if only because, at least in my very limited and anecdotal experience, there was already a sizeable base of people who knew how to play poker or enjoyed it or played it in groups once every couple of weeks. Card players have been one of the ultimate paradigms of cool for at least 150 years now, and that certainly ain't gonna change any time soon. Also: gambling. People love to think they can make money by playing a game, especially one that doesn't require any physical talent. Mix that in with the fact that lots of people are convinced that 'poker is all about psychology' (ie not math), and you've got yourself a national pastime.

Piers Anthony wrote a series of books that featured a society that revolved around games (the Apprentice Adept series), in which the skills tested range from the physical to sheer luck, passing through subterfuge, bluffing, manual dexterity, etc., where the most proficient competitors ended up in large-scale stadium-style contests...sort of a world gladiatorial culture designed by Mark Burnett with Boris Spassky, Abner Doubleday and, yes, Jane Austen advising.

I think there were talking horses, too -- so, you know, grain of salt.

ZD, yeah, that pretty much sums it up: Poker is simply a damn cool game, which ought to keep it in the public eye for a long time. I should point out that while I'm not interested in watching it on TV, I love the fact that is is now broadcast widely -- it's such an inherently, gorgeously untelevisable activity that it violates all the dumbing-down rules that critics throw at TV. In his otherwise excellent book Amusing Ourselves To Death, Neil Postman argued that because it's an internal process with few exterior markers of activity, it is unallowable on news TV to show someone in the act of thinking. Poker, however, is almost nothing but people sitting there thinking. Very cool.

Braine, I gotta see those books!

When I was young we used to have a childrens chess program on tv called 'Play Chess' (http://tv.cream.org/a-z/pq/p2.htm) , the perfect excuse to go outside and enjoy the sunshine.

On poker's popularity; I've noticed quite a few board game designers siting poker as their favourite game recently which has encouraged me to give it a go, last time I played was in Sierra's Police Quest when I was 10.

It was more ESPN's broadcast of the 2003 World Series of Poker that did it. Chris Moneymaker ended up winning a few million after winning his $10,000 entry with just a $40 tournament online. I imagine that created the internet boom.

I played poker all my life, primarily with my cousins when we'd go camping and I never even heard of Texas Hold 'Em until I saw it on ESPN. It's simply the best poker game. A game like 5 Card Draw doesn't give up any information (no cards are showing), Hold 'Em has the perfect balance of public cards and hidden (your hole cards).