More than two centuries after poker took root in America, its popularity endures.

It’s played at kitchen tables, dining room tables, American Indian casinos, casinos from near Washington, D.C., to the Deep South to Las Vegas to California and many spots in between. It’s also played online legally and illegally around the world.

In Cards Speak, we look at some of those games and the people who play them. While no-limit Texas hold’em and pot-limit Omaha are popular today, some of these stories are from a time when seven-card stud was spread in Las Vegas casinos.

As for the title Cards Speak, one of the rules of poker dictates that while you may declare you hand, what you hold is the final arbiter. That is, if you declare loudly that you have a straight, but in fact you have a small pair or, in fact, nothing, the cards themselves “speak” and determine what you hold.

If you “listen” carefully, you will hear the characters in these tales “speak” as well.