Hold’em was created in the town of Robson, Texas, sometime in the mid-20th century. It was introduced to Vegas in 1967 by a group of Texas poker players which included Doyle Brunson and Amarillo Slim.

The only place that you could find hold’em action in the late ’60s and early ’70s was at the Golden Nugget. When Tom Moore held the first poker tournament at the Second Annual Gambling Fraternity Convention in 1969, Jack Binion bought the rights for the tournament the next year, and the World Series of Poker was born.

The game slowly grew in popularity over the years until Chris Moneymaker won the main event at the WSOP in 2003. The story of the amateur winning $2.5 million, and the ability for players to play online, launched the game to levels of popularity the old Texas pros could never have imagined.

If you’ve never played in a huge poker event you probably don’t know how necessary listening to an iPod can be while playing poker. If you’ve ever played in a World Series of Poker event you know how insanely annoying it is when a 1,000 people in one room are riffling their chips. So if you are heading to the WSOP next year or get into a WPT main event, invest in an iPod beforehand.

Now that you’ve got your iPod to distract you from incessant chip noise and maybe even some annoying fellow players, what are you going to listen to? You could put together a mix of gambling-related songs like Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler”, and “Ace of Spades” by Motorhead. But going from Kenny to Motorhead is more than a little disjointed, and how geeky will you look with your super gambling music mix anyway.

When you’re loading up your iPod with poker tourney music, try and go as eclectic as you possibly can. Try and load up some different music for all the moods you might go through during the tourney. If you expect to last into the early hours, put in some tunes with some drive to them to help keep you awake. Something with some kick to it like old-school Metallica or AC/DC.

On the other hand, try and find something soothing and relaxing for those times when you suffer a bad beat and you need to quickly mellow out to avoid going on tilt. Even if you have to throw on some instrumental muzak that’s fine, as long as it does its job.

Also make sure you load on a bunch of tunes you actually like. Keep your spirits up and keep your confidence booming by listening to some tunes that really get you going. Whether it’s new pop, classic rock, punk, grunge, country or whatever, get some tunes that are easy to listen to, but also easy to drown out when you need to focus on the cards.

Whatever you end up putting on your iPod, just make sure you don’t start singing along.

Photo of University to Pro Poker Player

Poker has been one the most popular forms of recreation for university students for at least four or five years now. Lots of us spent more time playing cards than we did reading books, and some played so well that attending class meant losing money. There are many young players today that are finishing university and trying poker out for size. It’s the new ‘backpacking trip through Europe for a year expedition before you start your career’ thing. Smart people recognize the huge amounts of money that are up for grabs for a skilled and intelligent player.

There are a lot of things to consider before one decides to tell their parents that the money they just spent on your education will not start to return anything on their investment quite yet. Choosing to create a future for yourself that has you earning a living by playing poker is no easy feat. Beyond the doubt and raised eyebrows you will face from family and friends, there are many obstacles to face as a professional player.

We’ve all heard the success stories about players still in school amassing a huge bankroll or winning a WSOP bracelet. Phil Hellmuth is the most famous example of a player that went right into poker from university and never looked back. It can be done if you have what it takes. What does it take, you ask? That’s not easily answered, but I’ll say what I say to other players that talk about going pro. If you truly want to be a winning poker player it can be achieved, you just have to be willing to deal with any obstacle you may face in your journey towards that achievement.

Let your bankroll dictate whether you can live off of your play, and be willing to do whatever is required so that everything that needs to be taken care of every month does in fact get taken care of. Learn everything you can and control your emotions. (I say that like it’s an easy task.)

I say it can be your reality if you believe it will be, and you’re willing to put in the effort required to develop your game to the highest of levels.

Photo of Jerry Yang

Jerry Yang beat the odds to become the 2007 World Series of Poker champion and poker’s next big name. He is a part-time amateur player who only had a couple of small cashes in local tournaments in California before becoming the world champ. Yang was born in Laos in 1968 and fled the newly-communist country with his family for Thailand refugee camps, where he lived for four years. In 1979 he moved to the U.S. and later earned a Masters degree in health psychology from Loma Linda University. He has been working as a social worker and is married with six children.

Yang came out firing when the final table started and didn’t stop until it was over. Once he knocked out the first two players he had a massive chip lead of 55 million. He played aggressive big-stack poker for the rest of the event, raising large amounts pre-flop to win the huge blinds, and then made one gut-wrenching call after another when an opponent decided it was time to stand up to him.

Yang is the latest big name in poker who came out of nowhere to become a champion. As much as we all enjoy the top professionals playing for big money, the beauty of this game is that anyone can win if they play for awhile. Greg Raymer, Joe Hachem, Chris Moneymaker, Jamie Gold, and now Jerry Yang all had moderate poker experience up to the year in which they won the main event. A few of them got into the main event via a cheapo satellite tourney, too, because they didn’t have the ten grand to enter.

They are just like most of us, playing online and in local tournaments, working on our game plugging leaks, and going broke again and again - until that special day arrives and all that hard work, those struggles against better opponents, those bad runs, and those emotional relapses comes to an end and you win that big event. Jerry Yang once again showed everyone that poker is for anyone who takes the time to learn the game, and has the guts to put their cash up and compete.