TEXAS HOLDEM ONLINE POKER

CHICAGO — “Second-best is death in poker.”

The speaker is Phil Gordon, ace card player and co-host of the Bravo channel's “Celebrity Poker Showdown.” He is consoling me. I've lost a thousand bucks on a poker hand I knew was a winner.

The fact that they're plastic chips, not real cash, doesn't ease the humiliation.

Come the end of the evening, Gordon will have taught me and about 50 other people how to cope with a game that is sweeping the nation. Poker has gone from being a game most folks play for grins to a pop-culture phenomenon. Championships are televised. Pro players swagger from Vegas to Atlantic City, winning or losing millions. Poker books take their cuts on the best-seller lists; Jim McManus' Positively Fifth Street came out in March, and it's still among the top thousand sellers on amazon.com.

Gordon has a book coming out this fall, Poker: The Real Deal, a how-to he co-wrote with Jonathan Grotenstein. That's what tonight's party at the Omni Ambassador is about. Instead of a meet-and-greet, the kind of yawner promotion everyone at the annual BookExpo America convention tries to avoid, Gordon and his publicists at Simon Spotlight Entertainment have come up with something useful: Play poker with Phil.

I've played enough to know the basics: Any pair, even “deuces,” beats a single high card, even an ace. Two pair beat a single pair, and three of a kind beats two pair. A “straight” run, say 6-7-8-9-10, beats three of a kind, and a flush (five cards all the same suit) beats a straight.

Then there are the power hands: Full house (three of a kind and a pair) is beaten by four of a kind. Four of a kind is beaten by the mighty straight flush, which is five cards in sequence and in suit.

Tonight I'll experience three or four flushes, all but one of which I'll be wearing on my face.

Our game is Texas HoldEm, the hottest game in poker. It's different from regular poker in that each player gets just two cards, which are kept face down. The dealer puts the rest of the cards — five of em — face up in the middle of the table in a “community” hand, which each player uses in combination with his or her own cards. Bets are placed after each card is dealt.

Gordon gives each of us a thousand dollars in chips. Now, Texas HoldEm is a game in which one is supposed to risk all when the moment is right. The moment comes early for me. When all the cards are on the table, I peek at my own and see that the combination gives me a full house — three 9s, two jacks.

I am sitting next to Luke Lincoln. Luke lives in Chicago and is a friend of Phil's. Luke runs the American Tailgater Co., which facilitates elaborate parties for football fanatics who aren't content with a case of Bud and a Weber kettle. Luke and I have been chatting about the great atmosphere at Kansas City's Arrowhead Stadium. Lots of Luke's clients are Chiefs fans. Luke seems like a swell guy.

Baloney.

Everyone else has folded; Luke and I are the only ones still fighting for the pot. He places one more bet. I've already lost some hands and can't quite cover it, but I can go “all in,” meaning I'll be playing for whatever chips I'm able to throw in.

We turn our cards.

Luke has a full house, too.

Luke's full house is better than my full house.

Luke has three jacks and two 9s to my three 9s and two jacks. Unbelievable.

As Gordon would put it, “So he takes the pot and now you go blow your brains out.”

Luke is trying to be my buddy: “Don't worry. That was a bad beat.”

Getting whipped when you have a great hand — crushed by another hand just a bit better than your own — is called, aptly enough, a “bad beat.”

Since this isn't real money, Gordon has devised punishment: Whoever loses all his chips must go to the bar and fetch drinks. I grab myself a Diet Coke and return to the table with a gin and tonic for another player and a Heineken for that lucky stiff Luke.

Gordon gives me another thousand in chips.

It happens to me again.

This time I'm dealt a pair of 10s as my “hole cards,” the ones no one else can see. As the community hand is dealt, two jacks snick down onto the green table. I have two pair — and another nemesis. At the other end of the long table, Fred Jasinski of Imagine It Poker Concepts flips his cards. He has two queens.

“May I take your order?” I say to the other players, holding up my reporter's notebook, which has become a waiter's pad. I trudge back to the bar.

Before placing my order, I ask Gordon why Texas Holdem poker has been exploding in popularity.

“It all started to come together two years ago when the World Poker Tour brought the lipstick cameras to the game — the cameras that reveal people's hole cards. What that allowed TV viewers at home to do is play along and make decisions, to envision themselves being in the exact same seats as their favorite players.”

I say the only thing I keep envisioning is hard luck. And that's when Gordon offers me his sympathy: “Second-best is death in poker.”

Like the rest of the amateurs, I'm having trouble telling which hands I should play and which I shouldn't. Gordon sits us down for some lessons.

In general, if your hole cards add up to 20, you should keep playing. So if you're holding a 10 and jack, go for it. If you're holding a 4 and a 7, you might want to take a break. If you're holding a 4 and a 4, of course that's a pair and you stay in.

Gordon also tells us about “tells” — the mannerisms that betray folks. If a player is glaring and slamming down chips, maybe the bravado is a bluff. Much more ominous is the quiet push of the chips out onto to the table, accompanied by deferential downcast eyes.

As the evening wears away, Gordon's friends show up to help him dispense advice. And, oh boy, does Phil have friends. McManus, the Positively Fifth Street author, moves from table to table. So does Jill Ann Spaulding, a professional player. Her outfit is much more Jill Ann than it is outfit. She's all long legs, bare midriff, plunging neckline. She admits she wears scanty getups to distract opponents.

“It definitely helps,” she says.

I don't have her nice eyes. I'll just have to hobble along with Gordon's advice.

His pointers are working for other players. Jennifer Gilmore, director of publicity for Harcourt, had started the night dismally. Each hand seemed little more to her than an excuse to get the giggles. Phil had to make her a cheat sheet showing which hand beat which hand.

Jennifer looks at me and says, “In your story, I can be the dumb one, OK?”

But she's no dope. Midway through our three-hour game, she wins a tough hand. By the end of the evening, she looks to be a bit ahead, though poker etiquette says, “Don't ask.”

Another book industry official, Tom Rath of Gallup Press, picks up Phil's pointers and starts playing as if his milieu is not an office but a riverboat. Tom, in fact, pulls off the high hand of the night. Playing for a big pot against other hopefuls, Tom hangs tough. We soon discover he started this hand with a pair of 8s in the hole. Despite not getting much help from the first three community cards, Tom sticks it out — and the last two cards dealt to the table are 8s. Tom wins with four of a kind.

“The odds of that happening are one in 1,600!” Gordon shouts.

I improve, too. I do experience a moment of cowardice, folding while holding two spades while there are two on the table. Having lost all my chips twice, I can't bear the thought of another “bad beat.” I drop out, then see the final card flop onto the table — a 3 of spades. I would have won with a flush.

Soon, though, I'm raking in a pot of several thousand dollars after winning with two pair, kings over 4s. It's the third straight hand I've taken.

Then Gordon quits advising and plays a hand against us all. He starts with an ace and king in the hole. As the hand develops, Luke gets stubborn and hangs on despite his measly pair of 3s. Gordon goes “all in,” betting his entire $4,500 — and his pair of kings loses when a third 3 comes up for Luke.

“That was the worst call I've ever seen in my life!” he tells Luke, who just laughs.

Midnight comes. Time for everybody to holdem.

I count my chips. I'm sitting on $5,100.

If only it were real money.

Story of my life.