Chapter 85 - Poker This World was Missing (1/2)

Translator: Exodus Tales  Editor: Exodus Tales

Chen Mo was looking around on the internet, and an idea came out of nowhere.

“Right, I don’t think they have Texas hold ’em!

“But how could there not be Texas hold ’em? This doesn’t make sense!”

Chen Mo had been thinking long about what game was missing. But turns out that this world doesn’t have Texas hold ’em? That’s nonsense!

Chem Mo continued sourcing the web, even overseas ones, and concluded that there really wasn’t Texas hold ’em in this world!

“Indeed, I knew that something was missing, turns out that was Texas hold ’em!

“Alright, Thunderbolt Tabletop’s last puzzle piece has been found.”

Chen Mo even got a bit emotional upon finishing the tabletop games library.

—

Texas hold ’em weren’t considered popular in China. In terms of users, it wasn’t on the same level as Dou Dizhu, or mahjong. It wasn’t as well known either.

However, Texas hold ‘me was quite popular in certain communities, and they have even gotten quite in depth.

IT circles, pioneering communities, adventure capitalists, CEOs all favoured Texas hold ’em. Kai-Fu Lee, Liu Chuanzhi, Jack Ma and many others were all poker fnatics.

Texas hold ’em was also a global phenomena, especially in the US. If someone said they played poker, they most likely are referring to Texas hold ’em.

The poker tournaments by World Series of Poker would reach ten million USD at times. There was once a chef from Sweden who got first place and became a millionaire in a night.

There are many who can’t understand the mysterious power that Texas hold ’em?

If asked to use one sentence to summarise the difference between Texas hold ’em to other variations of poker, that would be: “Texas hold ’em is a type of poker where someone could make money reliably.”

It may sound unreal, but that was the truth.

Other tabletop games such as Dou Dizhu, Mahjong, or Golden Flower had strong ties to gambling. Skill was important, but luck was even more important. A professional Dou Dizhu or Mahjong player would rely heavily on luck to put food on their plate, and that wouldn’t be too different from just gambling.

And one of the key points in gambling was that playing longer guaranteed losses, and nobody could reliably make money from it.

But Texas hold ’em was a game that one could reliably profit from. If you are always losing in Texas hold ’em, that could only mean one thing: You’re terrible at the game.

Outside of China, there are many professional Texas hold ’em players, such as Phil Ivey who have been champion twenty four times in many different tournaments, being in the money (ITM) for over a hundred of them. He had made more than twenty million throughout his career in poker winnings.

There were also many professional Texas hold ’em players in China, usually making around one hundred thousand RMB a month. This was due to a multitude of reasons, Texas hold ’em had limited popularity in China, that said, there were around sixty million players.

Why was poker a valid method of making stable income? Because the rules of Texas hold ’em were much more complicated than other poker variations. You can back out anytime, and could go crazy to try and double your chips.

Moreover, you can vary your strategy based on what your opponent did (betting, calling, etc.) in Texas hold ’em.