Although it can be assumed that poker has older predecessors like the Irish “Poca” or the French “Poque”, its current form only developed in the United States in the early 1900s. There it spread along the Mississippi and had New Orleans as an early stronghold.
Like a few other games found in http://216.83.47.125, poker was typical from the beginning for the working classes, the simple people, especially the men. Poker became the game for gold miners, railroad workers, and cowboys. You needed more strong nerves than mathematical calculations and complicated strategies; luck was of course also very important.
In the visual arts, the representation of poker has therefore been limited to the United States for a long time. Among the hundreds of images of European art that focus on gambling, there is hardly any with poker players. In the US, however, poker quickly became popular in art to decorate saloon scenes accordingly. Later, with the advent of pulp magazines, no game was as popular as poker to illustrate the world of real tough guys.
In the film, which was essentially produced in the USA, poker was there from the beginning, so to speak, to lend ambiance to the world of cowboys, gangsters and workers. Even more than other games of chance, poker increasingly serves as a symbol for the refuge of a genuinely male world.
Wild West
Duel in the saloon by the American painter William Robinson Leigh (1866-1955). A typical western scene where the game of poker was probably the trigger of the shootout.
Pulp cover
Three covers of American pulps. Whether in the wild west or the cool world of modern gambling, you just play poker.
German pulse magazines
With trivial literature, poker has finally found its way into European iconography. Here are two covers of German horror magazines. When the going gets tough, or even the devil sits at the table, people play poker today.
Western comic
The western comic is hardly imaginable without poker. Lucky Luke and his opponents play poker; the latter of course wrong.
The poker pate
Designing Woman (1957) is a romantic comedy with Lauren Bacall and Gregory Peck. Bacall is an elegant fashion designer; Peck, on the other hand, is a tough, somewhat rough sports reporter. After their hasty wedding, the poker game quickly became the last male refuge, which was increasingly threatened. The poker pate naively produced by Bacall really finds Peck the very last.
Coolidge’s poker dogs
A Friend in Need (1903) from the famous series by Cassius Marcellus Coolidge. Coolidge produced a whole series of these dogs that play poker. Here, someone sends an ace to his “friend in need” under the table.
The highlight
Paul Newman in “The Clou” (1973). Newman is the prototype of the individual adventurer and bitch who is not intimidated by anything. Although he is of course familiar with practically all games of chance, he can only find real relaxation in poker.
From baccarat to poker
In the movie Casino Royale (2006) James Bond (Daniel Craig) has to defeat the arch-villain Le Chiffre in a poker game in Montenegro. It should be noted above all that Bond and Le Chiffre play baccarat in the novel and in earlier film adaptations. Only in this remake do you switch to poker. One can certainly see this as the assimilation of the once British bond by the American market. But it is also an indication of the rapidly growing popularity of the game.
