From the Wild West to PIO Solver - the development of poker

Even though winning players now use computer softwares to improve their game, for 'Wild' Bill Hickock, it was a much harder challenge to stay ahead of the curve.

Back in the 1800s, in the wild west, poker was played in smokey saloons, with rifles at the table and it was probably easier to win money in the games than to get home safe with it. The most famous story of this era involves James Butler Hickock, aka the legendary Wild Bill.

Most of the poker fans have heard about the phrase, the Dead Man's Hand [3], but many have the story wrong. Contrary to popular belief, the notorious lawman didn't hold jacks full of tens during his last poker session. According to the earliest accounts, Wild Bill had aces up in the deadly game. He entered the Nuttal & Mann’s Saloon in Deadwood, Dakota, and decided to play 5 Card Stud.

However, as the only seat open wasn't facing the entrance of the saloon, he had to break his old habit, which leads to his tragedy. The game was running, when Jack McCall walked into the place and taking advantage of Hickock's position, he killed the legendary hero. As Bill was holding two black aces and two black eights, this hand still has the infamous name carrying the legend of Wild Bill Hickock for almost 150 years now.

In 2019, we can enjoy playing the thrilling game of poker from the comfort of your home, where we can be certain, we play in a safe and fair environment. In the age of online poker, we have many options to choose from, we can grind cash games, or choose to play the most popular form of the game, multi-table tournaments [4].

Unlike Hickock, we don't have to worry about gunmen coming at us while playing, but it's become harder to beat the opponents in the actual game, as the game has evolved so much and players got much better. However, if we put in the work and are humble enough to acknowledge our weaknesses, we can still manage to always bring our A-game [5] to the table and therefore maximize our expected value and therefore our profit at the tables.

In addition to the mental aspect, improving our strategy is just as important, and the most useful tools for this are certainly the online coaching sites and the softwares, where players can analyze the game theory optimal strategies.