The Rules

Every rule of poker started as a fresh idea, usually cooked up in a hurry to take care of a problem. I can imagine the birth of some of the great rules of poker:

"Hey! Quit that! No fair telling him what to do!" And the "one player to a hand" rule was born.

"You tight-asses have no gamble in you whatsoever. Either we figure out a way to loosen this game up, or I'm taking my easy money and going home." And the ante was born.

"Hey guys. Guess what. Because no one has folded during this entire hand, we aren't going to have enough cards for everybody to get seven. What do we do now?" And the "community card" was born, which later grew up to become hold'em.