When people talk about the first online poker room, they're usually referring to Planet Poker - the brainchild of Mike Caro and the site that dealt the first ever real-money online poker hand on Jan. 1, 1998.

What most people don't know is the idea for online poker had been around and functioning for years before then.

In 1988, Finnish programmer Jarkko "WiZ" Oikarinen invented IRC (Internet Relay Chat). IRC was the first online "chat room" allowing anyone to set up an IRC server and anyone on that server to create his or her own chat rooms (or channels as they're known).

Over time IRC grew in size and functionality, eventually allowing users to do things like send files and, more importantly, create and run scripts - basically computer programs that operate within the parent program itself.

The thought came to me sort of like this: I'm lazy, and I like the idea of playing poker while sitting on my couch watching TV.

Originally, I developed a system to play poker online using voice-control software, but this isn't very useful if you want to chat with your roommates or eat a BLT while you play.

The next logical step would be using the wireless poker controller, but I just don't like the idea of paying for something I can build myself for free.

The Rock Band (and Guitar Hero) instruments are, basically, wireless controllers. You hit a button on the guitar and it sends that button-press to its little receiver hanging from your Playstation's USB port.

I saw no reason why I shouldn't be able to plug the instrument into my computer and use it as my very own wireless poker controller. And besides, playing poker by using a guitar … that's just rad.

Have you ever been so lazy that having to use your mouse to play online poker was just too much work?

Me neither. And when I first decided to put together a fully functional system for voice-controlled poker, I was doing it simply as a novelty.

Surprisingly while testing it out, I found that voice-controlled poker can actually be pretty useful.

There are times where I want to sit on my couch, watch TV, and play a table or two of online poker. Nothing too serious, just something to kill time. I've always hated using laptop touch pads, and voice control ended up being a perfect option.

This system I've set up is 100% functional. You can start your poker client, find a table, log-in, buy-in and post your blinds.

Once you're on a table you can do everything you would normally use your mouse for - freeing up your hands for more important tasks.

There are hundreds of misconceptions and rumors about poker bots around, including what they are, how they work and if you should be worried about them at the tables.

Poker bots are nothing new. The concept of artificial opponents was originally developed for the game of chess. Over time, programmers were able to create computerized opponents that can defeat the world's greatest chess-playing humans.

But, luckily for us humans, No-Limit Hold'em is a far more complicated game to teach an A.I. than chess.

Limit Hold'em, however, thanks to its primarily mathematical nature, is a bit easier for bots to wrap their silicon heads around. Programmers at the University of Alberta are well known for creating Polaris, the first bot that can actually give humans some real competition in this variant.

But as of yet, no programmer has managed to create a truly competitive and competent bot for No-Limit Hold'em.

Update - it's here!! Click here to play real money poker on the iPhone and iPad at Switch Poker! If you want more information before signing up, check out our review of playing iPhone online poker at Switch Poker.

Every iPhone-wielding poker player wants to know the same thing: How can I use my iPhone to play poker?

As most poker-playing iPhiles already know, Apple will not approve any application which can be used for "gambling."

For this reason, no poker sites have written native iPhone poker software. But that doesn't mean people aren't trying to find a way to work around the problem.

In-Browser Poker Rooms

Lots of poker sites offer full-featured play from inside a standard web-browser. Since the iPhone comes equipped with Safari, you might be thinking that you're home free.

Unfortunately, it's not quite that simple.

Ever wondered how poker sites randomly shuffle the deck? Here's everything you need to know about RNGs, but were too afraid to ask.

Before we get into the generators, the first step in understanding how a poker site shuffles its decks is to understand what the word random actually means. The actual definition of random is very simple:

For years, only the people who supported the Microsoft Empire could play online poker on their computers, leaving Mac and Linux users out in the cold.

With the vast majority of the computing world running Windows, poker sites originally decided that it wasn't worth the development time and cost to create software for other platforms.

Only recently has M$ Windows dropped below a 90% market share, mostly as a result of increased sales of Apple computers. Using this statistic as their inspiration, three of the largest poker rooms have created Mac-specific software allowing Mac users to play on their sites without any restraints or hindrances.

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