Seven Short Work Outs While Playing Poker

Casinos and poker sites are among the best (or should we say worst) places on earth to gain those extra fats on your body. It is the place full of derailing elements – stress, hard drinks and unhealthy snacks galore, and physical confinement on a poker online table.  

And, poker is an indoor game that needs longer sitting hours. And on an average a full time poker player spends 60 hours per week (excluding travel time). This boosts the waistlines of poker players thereby leading to the gain of weight and being heavy. It becomes more essential than ever, with the inactive lifestyle, that poker live players should have an alternative to fight this needless weight gain by doing workout exercises while sitting on a chair. Following is the list of some exercises to perform while playing poker games: 

Warm up exercises

Try warm up exercises like 2 minutes walking in place or going for a 5 minute walk around the casino. Or your terrace whenever you get a time to take a break. 

Do at least 10 glute squeezes sitting on your chair. All you require to do is sit straight with your feet flat on the floor, and then contract your glutes. Hold for 3 seconds in order to rise up a bit in your chair prior to relaxing muscles. 

The most common is the arm circle exercise. Extend arms and rotate them in clockwise circles, and then repeat it counter clockwise. Even 20 rotations each help. 

Now comes the easiest one which hardly needs any movement. Sitting in your chair do abdominal contractions by pulling your belly in towards your spine. Hold for 5 seconds, release and then repeat again. 

Raising your toe is the best routine exercise during breaks as it lets you to tone the calves without breaking a sweat and with minimal room. 

Carry resistance exercise bands to the best online poker sites in order to do those toning moves and band exercises require very little space. 

To tone up your chest and distress your back, do at least 20 push ups against the wall. 

So, the next time you have to go to a poker room to play poker, just try the above exercises sporadically as and when the free time is available to you. Working out during short breaks can help you stay fresh and think rationally. 

Good luck at the tables! Happy gaming! 

 

Tricks of Poker Chips

When you are at the poker table, one of the major strategies is to appear confident to your opponents. And one of the ideal ways for that is to learn the poker tricks. These tricks need good hand coordination, loads of practice and focus to be effective. They can help communicate confidence when you wish to bluff a bad hand or coerce other players with your casual yet skilled handwork as you play Texas Hold’em poker online, however they can be used for show off at any social gathering as well. Listed below are a few instances of poker chips tricks for you to begin. 

Knuckle Roll 

A much loved trick of poker chips is the knuckle roll. This trick seems to be the go-to in movies for characters to show how proficient they are at the game of online poker. While it might appear complicated to pull off this trick, it is in truth unexpectedly simple. All you have to do is take a poker chip and roll it across your fingers. 

To begin, pinch the chip between your thumb and forefinger, next rolling it over your forefinger, pinching it with the next finger, and keeping it going. It’s much simpler than it looks. Practice until you get good enough that it feels like second nature. 

Chip Twirl 

You may find the chip twirl a bit simpler, as you have more power over your chips, though practice is still crucial. Not like the knuckle roll, this chip twirl uses three chips rather than just. You can even use more than three chips, if you are bold enough. When practicing, you don’t have to fret about the poker chips falling out of your hands; hence you can concentrate on mastering the procedure and learning how to do them quicker. The quicker you go, although, the more you are at risk of dropping your chips. This is a pleasant trick to perform carelessly; making the rotation of the chip look like it’s something you learned sloppily. 

Thumb Flip 

Of all the poker tricks, the thumb flip is probably the most rewarding if you practise. It is not much simpler than the chip twirl, however it has the benefit of being easy to learn while also being easy to master. 

Like the chip twirl, it takes many chips (generally three or four). Once you learn how to get the fine moves down, which shouldn’t take long, boosting your swiftness is easily achieved by practice. Once you get your speed up, you’ll truly amaze others who don’t know how to do these deceivingly easy poker chip tricks. 

Shuffle 

While the thumb flip is perhaps the simplest trick to master fast, the shuffle is the simplest to learn. The steps are fairly easy, and, unlike the knuckle roll, this trick lacks the danger of chips falling, as they’re stacked on the table rather than placed on your hand. This chip trick works best with more chips, and it needs an even number of chips in sequence for the two stacks to fold together rightly. You may have to practice this a bit, but the procedure are easy enough that you shouldn’t have much of an effort, and people around you who don’t know the trick will have no notion how simple it is. 

When you’re all set from practicing your poker chip tricks, try them out at the table. You may not be able to show off your poker chip tricks, but you can still practice while you play poker online. 

Good luck with the trick and at the poker table! 

 

Poker and Psychology

None of the poker player having self esteem would dream of playing the game without having some basic knowledge about the strategy. 

Many ignorant poker players would not think of anything before sitting down to play the game and risk unusual amount of cash without knowing the human side of the game. Knowing what goes on inside the minds of our illogical opponents is just as vital to winning as any mathematical formula. What’s more, the aptitude to look inside and discover how your own thoughts and feelings control the way you play poker  is crucial if you wish to win in the long run. 

Having a feel for the psychology of the game helps you in two ways. Firstly, better you read your opponents’ thoughts, the better you read his cards. Secondly, a deep knowledge of your persona lets you to play at your total best and ignore the common drawbacks like tilt. Opponents will come and go; hence we start with the one player you can never get away from: you. 

Knowing Yourself 

Poker players are several of the most delusional people on our globe. They don’t play too many hands; players just like to see flops. They don’t raise at the incorrect time; it was the opponent’s fault for not folding when he was supposed to. For every slip we make at the poker table, there is an identical and opposite reason to explain it away. And when all else fails we can hold responsible our bad luck. 

Ego and Competition 

Competition reveals the delicate ego present in each one of us, but there is something about poker that makes the failure even tougher to take. Nobody enjoys losing money, but at times something even more is crucial that money is at stake and that is the pride. Poker is steeped in power, and to admit your opponent may be stronger, smarter or just plain better than you is to allow a terrible weakness. The poker mind will go to unbelievable lengths to prevent such a revolting thought. 

Make no error, confidence is necessary. You can’t be a winning poker player without the confidence. To endure the brutal swings you ought to have complete faith in yourself. But when does confidence cross the line to be overconfident? That is where self-knowledge enters the scenario. At the poker table, the aptitude to be frankly honest is worth its weight in gold. This is easier said than done, obviously.  

Your Own Playing Style 

To look into deep into your poker psyche, you require thinking about your own poker playing style. It comes down to why you play poker in the first place. Do you play to hang out with people? As you like the thrill of contest?  Or to prove something? Whatever the reason, or blend of reasons, your style of play is going to mirror that. 

It does you no good to learn correct poker strategy if you won’t use that knowledge when it counts. You can read books, study hand histories, buy fancy software to calculate percentages for you – but nothing and no one will ever make you into a first-rate poker player game but you. 

Knowing your opponent 

Between the amateur players who think nothing of losing cash as long as he can have fun playing the poker online game and the hardcore ones who hang onto each chip for dear life, there is astounding variety of poker players out there.  

If you want to play poker online at a higher level, you ought to be able to read them all. Just by reading your opponent can you put him on a range of hands, and merely by putting him on a range of hands can hope making the right choice most of the time. 

Adjust Your Play Accordingly 

Once you’ve got a little psychological read on your opponent, put that data to use and bend your play accordingly. Against a poker maniac, know there will be some wild financial swings in your future if you stay in this game. If you can’t grip that, go away. When you can, tighten up, re-raise with your decent hands, and in particular don’t let him put you on tilt. If your opponent is too passive, be more aggressive. If your opponent is too loose, value-bet more and bluff much less. For all flaws, there’s a best way to use that flaw and it’s your job to discover it. 

Putting it together 

Once you have understood your opponents well along with yourself, the true psych out poker games can start off. This includes higher levels of ideas. The very beginner poker players just care about their own cards, while the middle level players at least try to think what their opponents are holding. The expert players consider what their opponents think they have. Of course, this is impossible without having a read on the opponent and more than that, a grasp how a player’s opponent is reading him. 

Your Table Image 

You must have knowledge of your table image. Then if you can put yourself in your opponent’s shoes, figure out how he’s making choices – and not how you would be making decisions if you were in his place – you’re set to play poker as an expert. Assuming your opponent is also playing as an expert, the mind games between the two of you can go on roughly forever. 

The ultimate mind tactics of poker game is bluff 

There are numerous factors that ultimately play into a successful bluffing. However, bluff lives and dies based on the opponent it is targeted at. If your opponent senses what you are up to, if he has got a stronger hand than you figured, if his confidence is puffed up by a few wins recently, you are a goner. The tactic is not just about bluffing the weak players; it is about bluffing players who are feeling weak at the game in that moment. 

Psychology is no alternative for cold hard poker math. But psychology can add an unbelievable depth to your game, and to your wallet, when it’s used in union with a solid poker plan. It forms a one-two punch which is virtually invincible. By opening up your eyes to the human side of the game, even as you keep on to calculate odds, there’s no motive you can’t have the best of both worlds. 

Happy playing! 

 

5 Signs You Selected a Bad Online Poker Site

If you are lately playing at a poker site that you are not definite about, this post will help you make a decision if you ought to play elsewhere. If you observe that the poker site where you are playing has all or a few of the negative signs listed below, it is time to search another site to play poker. 

Not adequate games throughout the day 

It’s tough to make money when there aren’t any games in the site! A few poker sites just don’t have sufficient games. The best poker sites don’t have this dilemma as they put forth the effort to market efficiently. A big part of the scheme with poker online is the ease factor. You should be able to turn on your computer and get into a game within a matter of seconds. Or else, the ease factor is removed. 

Everyone seems to be talking smack about your poker site 

All poker sites will have its fare share of haters. The motive for that is losers frequently blame the site, not their game. If you often visit the poker forums, you’ve perhaps noticed tons of posts from poker players that are crying about a certain site being “rigged” or how bad it works. Most of these posts end up getting bashed by other members and called out for being an awful poker player that is blaming the site. Thus, if you find similar posts on Internet forums and no one seems to be defending the site, that’s a sign the site is the trouble. 

They take forever and a day to pay you 

We are well into the 21st century. Gone are the days where online poker players require waiting weeks to get paid after requesting a payout. Well, they should be. Alas, a few poker sites are still stuck in 2003 and make players wait forever and a day to get their money. Quite honestly, there’s no justification for this. If your site makes you wait weeks to receive your winnings, hit upon one that doesn’t. There are loads of fast-paying online poker sites. 

The software is also stuck in the early 2000s 

Like we said, the early 2000s are long gone. Poker sites have developed, particularly in terms of software quality. If the site has the look, feel, and safety of a 2003 online poker site, don’t misuse your time at the site playing uselessly. The top online poker sites have safe, secure playing platforms with modern graphics. The aesthetics of a poker site says a lot about the poker players. If a player really does want to be a serious player in the online poker world, he or she will invest properly in modern technology. Don’t settle for anything less. 

You are not winning 

The point to play poker is winning, or to earn money. If you aren’t winning on a certain poker site, you need to make a change. Nowadays, this is a double-edged sword. The reason you aren’t winning on that site is either because of the site or because you aren’t a skilled poker player. Give yourself a sincere review. Do you win elsewhere? If so, hold the site responsible and find some other site that offers the games and quality of opponents you can handle. If you don’t have a verified winning track record anywhere, work on fixing the holes in your game first. 

Happy playing! 

 

5 Ways Poker Can Reduce Stress

What do you do when you are stressed? Read books? Sketch? Paint? Listen music? Practice music? Write? Do gardening? Play with your pets? And this list goes on! Many people play simple games to get their stress away and many play challenging games. The ones who vote for challenging games believe the challenges in the games will keep them away from the regular stress. 

What do you believe? Are you a gamer as well? There are lots of indoor and outdoor games for you to play. Playing cards is one of the most popular games having wide variations in the game. And amongst playing cards, online poker is one of the most interesting.  

Many players consider poker as a stressful game but we are here to say that poker can reduce your stress when played in a relaxed manner. How? Read on the following: 

Good Conversation Starter 

Whether you are playing poker in a casino or poker online, it is a great activity which allows people to interact with each other and can take your mind off other worries. 

Makes you laugh 

Interactions lead to stories, loads of laughter and innumerable memories. When you laugh a lot and are in a good mood, it relaxes your entire body and reduces the tension you have. 

No pressure 

Lots of players take the game of poker to a stressed level. It is because they have only the goal of gambling and winning money. But when you take it sportingly as a good sport taking no pressure to win but to play a good competitive online poker game, you will have no pressure. Poker can be a light hearted game, if you play in such manner. 

Exercises the brain 

Poker is a game of skill and that is a universal statement. When you play poker, your brain is bound to work and think about the moves in different way. There are many variations of poker game to select for play and they can be as tough or as easy based on your talent. 

Break from technology 

Now, if you play poker online, you cannot get break from technology. But if you play poker in casinos, it allows you to get away from technology, gives your eyes a break from the screen and connects you with others. In other words, you get a relief from your daily stress.  

There are several poker games to choose from such as Texas Hold’em poker, Omaha poker, Blaze Poker and many others. find the perfect game for you that will reduce your stress.

Let’s Play!

Brain Games For Poker Players

Poker players play poker just! Is that right? We have a doubt. Though many of you who are professional poker players, prefer to play none other games that poker, but oftentimes it is a decent plan to play the simple brain games. 

The brain games for poker players hone their poker talents. Let’s see what brain games you can play when you are not busying playing poker and also you are away from your profession. 

Logical Games 

Logic is the base of any poker tactic. When you play poker, you ought to be aware of the logic and consistency of every move. They ought to create a ‘history’ which you in turn should ‘sell’ to your opponents. If your moves have flaws, the opponents will exploit them. 

There are lots of logic games, from simple ones to unusually complex ones. These games won’t take much of your time but it will coach you not to rush, consider your actions through a few steps ahead and construct logical chains to attain the set goal. 

Memory Games 

The significance of good memory in a successful poker game is tough to misjudge. Let’s assume, you are multi-tabling. It is your move on the Turn, but you can’t recall what occurred before. Does that sound common? Or, perhaps, you remember that some hands back this opponent made a few weird move, however what was that move? And was it even the same player? 

If you frequently experience these troubles, memory training ought to help you a lot to improve your poker results. Apart from using your memory directly, memory games challenges your peripheral vision and makes you recall not the object itself but its position on the screen. In other words, you will be learning to recall a scenario when you play poker game. 

Speed Games 

Imagine you’re playing eight tables that are tiled. You continuously have to push buttons in totally different sections of the screen. Each time you miss a button with your mouse cursor, you waste prized fractions of a second in the realization of it, then in uttering something to yourself about it and finally pushing the right button. In the online poker game, if your mouse and reflexes aren’t truly decent, it’s a trouble.  

The speed games thus help the poker players to hone you reflexes and mouse click timing. 

Along with the brain games, you know, if you experience troubles with focus, the root of this evil is most likely to be your lifestyle. In 99% of cases, you can notably extend the time of highest focus and attention by enhancing your sleep schedule, drinking more water, adding proper breaks, eating healthier food, and being physically active, within reason of course. 

Find these kinds of brain games and play! And good luck at your poker tables! 

 

Food Of Music For The Poker Mind

There’s no denying that music has an influence on our moods and motivation. Music has the healing power.  Music plays an integral role in entertaining us throughout our day, and playing poker is no exception. 

Countless studies have been conducted to prove or deny claims that music helps with concentration. Some go as far as claiming music makes us smarter and increase our brainpower. 

Whatever studies may say, music helps people with all sorts of moods or states of mind: happy, energetic, sad or motivated, so why not focused? Numerous poker players have found out that listening to music with no lyrics, and with a mild and constant symphony is most helpful for them, thus they have the strong belief that classical music is ideal for concentrating in the poker online game. 

To explain a bit, music can act as an amazingly powerful psychological phenomenon, to the point that hearing a certain musical stimulus can change a player’s mood physically. 

Many tournament players already naively use classical conditioning to some extent. 

As the choice of music made by the poker pros might seem trivial, on a deeper psychological level, they are effectively conditioning themselves to pair some type of music to an apt mood. The reason this is crucial as poker is a game which is largely reliant on making the right decisions while you are sitting at the table against some terrific opponents, and being in the wrong mood can be oftentimes shattering, as anyone on tilt can confirm. Having the discipline to stay mentally acute while playing poker is a highly needed skill in poker, and the pros are partly doing this by listening to music. 

Advantages of music for poker players

Concentration 

Music offers the concentration which is essential in a poker game. When you play poker online, you have to calculate your moves and ensure that you focus. Holding a talk is different from listening to music, and you need to make sure that you focus on the game. With music playing in the background, you will be able to focus on playing the game. It will be easy to concentration on the moves that you are making to ensure that you are victorious. 

Relaxing atmosphere 

The ambience when you play poker is usually very tense as everyone has the one ultimate goal and that is to win the game and earn money. Music has a technique of making you feel relaxed even when the strain to win is high. With decent music, you feel relaxed and ensure that you concentrate on playing a good game. Most of the music played during a game is slow and relaxing music. 

Good entertainment 

Playing poker is not just about the winning money. Playing poker is about getting some good time after a whole day of working. Music should escort good distraction. Listening to music while you play poker is the just right to enjoy your evening or weekend. 

Play music and play your poker hands calmly and smartly! Good luck! 

Queen Of Hearts – A Remembering Tale For Online Poker Players

To play poker is fun but to know its colourful and bright history is equally fun! 

Whether you play the game of poker online, offline or in tournaments, you need the deck of playing cards for the game. And all the major poker playing cards have interesting tales linked. Today we bring you the story of Queen of Hearts and its association to Elizabeth of York. The Queen of Hearts is one of the 52 cards in a standard deck of cards!  

It was in the late 14th century that the deck of cards was introduced to England, immediately rivalling the fame of old games of chance like dice. While the playing cards were utterly nothing new. The ancient Egyptians used to play them. Standardised ‘suits’ of diamonds, spades, clubs and hearts which we’d recognise now was adopted from a lately evolved French style. Up to that time, people would have played with suits more resembling old tarot cards. Those were swords, wands, coins, cups etc. 

But, the stylised French ‘Queens’ on the modern cards accept more than just a passing similarity to one of our own queens. Frequently ignored now but beloved by her contemporaries. Elizabeth of York, wife of King Henry VII, mother of King Henry VIII. The instant you put next to Elizabeth’s most famed portrait with the picture of a new card deck Queen you can see the resemblance. What with both queens’ pointed gable hoods with long, hanging lappets to the side. Each delicately holding a flower. Especially the face of the Queen of Hearts bears a strong likeness to the usual. And fair kind of Elizabeth’s standard portrait. 

The tale of Elizabeth

So, the tale goes that Elizabeth of York was fond of card games to such extent, that following her untimely and early death on her 37th birthday after childbirth, the grief-stricken Henry VII regimented that her picture would become the Queen of Hearts. In this manner she could in the pastime she had loved eternally. 

Elizabeth was surely fond of an excitement – much like the rest of her court people. Her accounts are full of gambling debts being paid in and out. While Elizabeth of York as Queen of Hearts is the only personage-as-card we make out, the French – whose styling we lifted – had identities for all of their ‘face’ cards. Their Queen of Hearts was Judith, a biblical character, while the King of Hearts was the famous Charlemagne. As a result, rather unfortunately, today’s Queen of Hearts is perhaps just an imitation of a mythohistorical Jewish woman wearing the glad-rags of a late 15th century queen – the point at which the pastime began to be well-liked – rather than a touching and lasting compliment to an ever more marginalised Queen Consort. 

This is one of the short tales linked to the Queen of Hearts. Play poker online and repeat this tale at your table. You will surely discover that many of your poker-mates do not know this tale.

Happy playing!

4 Steps To Becoming A Poker Shark

Poker seems like an easy game. There isn’t much involved and the structure is simply a matter of deal and play and so on. Still, the apparent simplicity of poker is deceptive. There is a reason this game has continued to fascinate people from all walks of life for over 200 years! The truth is that poker mastery involves a great deal of skill. Here we’re covering the four basic steps you require to master to become an expert play poker online player! 

Learn the rules 

You require learning the rules of the game. If you are completely new to poker it may take a little while to get it at first, but rest easy knowing that the basic rules of online poker are shared among virtually all game variants. Once you’ve picked up your first game the others tend to be only minor variations. 

Still, before you play any hand of poker you require knowing the specific rules of that game. Not understanding a few of the particulars can lead to numerous spectacular failures. 

Learn the numbers  

A few basic mathematics and statistics are essential to becoming a good poker player. While you may not require knowing the precise values, you will require having a very good idea of the worth of every hand and the chance to make money with it. Each situation involves a slightly unlike calculation, but essentially it all comes down to pot odds and implied pot odds. In many cases simply knowing whether you are the favourite or the underdog is enough. 

If you are playing online at home don’t hesitate to use charts and tables of odds. Reference cards are excellent ways to pad your knowledge until you gain enough experience to have an intuitive feel for the cards. Working through the examples in books also accelerates the learning process. Often a real game will be moving too quickly for you to properly deduce your chances. 

Keep in mind: The numbers from game to game can vary wildly. For example, a pair of kings is much stronger in Hold’em than in Omaha. Approach each new variant carefully and play poker cautiously until you understand the differences. 

Learn the people 

Knowing the rules and the numbers is only half the game. Poker online is truly a game about people. In front of your seat at the table will be a pile of chips, numerous cards, and most crucially several other people. You’ll have to assume they know the rules of the game and understand at least something of the numbers. Perhaps it may be surprising then that everybody plays in a different way. Do they understand the game in a different way? Or are they simply bad players? 

Players, all players, make mistakes. It’s a matter of what kind and how often they make mistakes that decides their skill level. Occasionally you get people who forget the basic rules, but more commonly you’ll get people who don’t have a good understanding of the numbers. Knowing these people and understanding their mistakes is a key skill. 

But even players with perfect grasp of the numbers play another way. Each of them has a particular strategy which they believe is going to make them money. A few of these players have gradual stack changes while others have large swings. A few people are cowards and numerous are bullies. It’s your job to identify each player. Label them. Tag them. Describe them. Knowing their style will assist you in knowing their cards; and that will help you avoid making mistakes. 

Manipulate the people 

Knowing people is the key to not losing money, and at certain stakes, with a good deal of patience, it can also provide for a steady income. But to get better returns you’ll require taking it to the next level. You require playing your challengers against themselves. 

Just taking advantage of mistakes isn’t enough. No, you want to push your challenger into a corner. Learn the situations where they make bad calls and create them. Force on them scenarios where they feel uncomfortable. Your goal is to explore their shortcomings and cause them to make mistakes. 

You are on your path of becoming a real shark! 

Happy playing!

History Of The Playing Cards Suits & Symbols

Poker is an ancient game! And it has a colourful history. But, do you know that bright history? We are sure, you don’t. You just play poker online and do not think about or read about the history linked to it. And thus we have brought to you a small tale of playing cards. Read on: 

The notion of suit symbols might have started off with Chinese ‘Money’ cards. But, the suits which made their way into Europe were most likely a variation of the Islamic cups, swords, coins, and polo sticks.  

As Europeans didn’t know what the polo sticks were they shifted them as batons. And they became what we know these days as the ‘Latin’ suit-signs. These were used in Spain and the Iberian Peninsula and Italy until French Card makers had a bright commercial triumph of inventing the ‘French’ suit-signs which are much simpler to make. 

In the meantime, by the end of the fifteenth century, playing cards had put on most of Western Europe. The varied cultural contexts and printing techniques led to a variety of playing card types and styles. Stereotyped designs odd to exact regions evolved and became standard patterns. But the combos of court hierarchy and suit symbols were not always uniform and stable.  

Numerous designs

In numerous cases we see Kings climbed on horseback, in many other cases seated on thrones. Numerous packs contained Queens and attendants; others preferred horsemen and foot soldiers. Many packs had additional trump cards or five suits. In several regions the suit signs were somewhat fluid and included everyday objects, animals, helmets, hunting kit or flowers. Packs are known with suit symbols such as: crowns, roses, hearts, pennies and rings or bells, leaves and acorns. 

We do not know exactly why this happened. But we can wonder that diverse cultural, artistic and iconographic traditions. Distinct feudal, noble or regal court hierarchies, liberal or conservative tendencies. The migration of craftsmen along with the exportation of artisanal goods and crafts to other markets. Even linguistic influences and fashions in clothing, played a part in how the pack of playing cards changed and was accepted in various regions.  

16th century Portuguese mariners introduced their Latin-suited ‘Dragon’ playing cards into Japan. They were then banned in a prohibition of 1648. But they recurred in disguised forms and advanced into numerous variant types. The dragon on the Aces was accustomed by the Japanese in Unsun Karuta, and by the Javanese too. While the name for the cards, “Karuta”, is copied from the Portuguese. Likewise, the Native American Indians made cards with their own understanding of Spanish suit symbols based on those used by Spanish sailors and kept them even after French-suited cards had arrived from Europe. 

Export of the cards

It is known from numerous sources that cards were exported at a premature date from Germany to Italy, packed in barrels. Late 15th century German Card makers produced Italian and Spanish-suited cards in the new system of engraving, in an elaborate Gothic style, which were exported to foreign markets and influenced local creation in those places. 

To summarize, first came the Latin suit systems, which are still used in Spain, America, Italy, the Philippines, a few parts of France and North Africa. The courts were perhaps all-male to start with, but female pages and queens were soon introduced. Germanic suit systems evolved after a period of testing with different combos of suits, and at last the French suit system was invented as a technical innovation in which the number cards were simplified, and which has turn into the most widely-used suit system around the globe. 

The next time when you play poker, remember you are playing with the cards which have bright historical tale to remember. 

Happy playing!