Poker is a very easy game to learn and it is has intense mass appeal. Anybody who wishes to play poker can learn to play it in just a few minutes. How hard can it be to memorize the card combinations and their rankings? Moreover, how hard can it be to learn how the games are played, who deals, who bets, and how to respond to bets?

Poker's popularity is greatly aided by its? very nature. Poker is a very challenging game that gives you the means to bluff your way out of a tight spot. It is an aided and abetted con game. It is all about impressions and human perception. It is a very exhilarating feeling to make other players fold even when you don't have a winning hand.

This ease of playing and this mass appeal both launched poker to heretofore unimagined heights. World poker tournaments are being staged and greatly awaited. Professionals, executives and celebrities turn their backs on their sure and more than lucrative careers to pit their skills in the world poker arena.

Poker and the Television

The mass media foresaw the poker boom and nurtured it to its current spot among favorite commercial card games. Primetime television can hardly be called complete without the many televised poker tournaments and poker primer shows.

The networks have done everything in their power to further the popularity of this card game and to make a tidy profit in the process. They stage celebrity poker tournaments were famous personalities try to outwit each other in a televised series. The celebrities need not be good at poker; that is never the first consideration. They just have to be really famous and have a basic knowledge of poker. Celebrity poker shows are not aired for the delectation of the experts but for the appreciation of the masses.

To satisfy more hard-core poker fans, the networks also stage televised poker tournaments among the poker greats. In these shows you will find the best and the raciest professional poker players pit their considerable skills against each other for the chance to add another notch to their figurative belts.

These poker tournaments for the professional poker players have helped beginners in their efforts to learn winning poker strategies. There are cameras on the seats of each player so that the audience would be able to see what the pros have on hand. Then they will be able to see how their poker idols play their hands, and thereby pick something new to try for their own games later on.

Poker is a challenging and exciting game of skill, wit and luck. No wonder it is prime pick for card players all over the world. No wonder it continues to earn the networks more money and higher ratings.