TEXAS HOLDEM ONLINE POKER

Texas Holdem' is not "a" game. It's "the" game for Merle Weldele, a professional rounder who has been at the game of poker since the age of 14. He enjoys Holdem's fast pace, and the leverage it offers players on a winning streak. Quick play stacks up to quick wins.

"Poker comes before anything else in my life. It's a passion that not many people understand. They don't call it work, but I do because it's how I pay my bills," he said.

Seated at a poker table is where he feels comfortable, explaining that its the one place where his social skills come alive. The smoke-filled casino is home.

"I've spent most of my life in bars and in cars," he said, explaining that at the height of his game he was traveling more than 1,000 miles a week to games in Montana, North Dakota and Canada. He'd hit all of the high-line gigs.

His demeanor is gruff and blunt, but kind and friendly. His dress casual. His verbiage, abrasive. He wears a black cowboy hat with a small red feather.

Seated in a wheelchair inside a dark casino, Weldele takes a drag off his cigarette. He begins to unravel his story.

He began playing poker at the age of 14 as a way of supporting his smoking habit, something he took a liking for when he was 12 or 13.

His mom said that while she wouldn't pay for his habit, she was agreeable to giving him money to get involved in a card game. With a handful of friends, he got a kitchen table game together in his hometown of Scobey, Mont.

At the age of 18, he went to work as a card dealer at the Golden Wheel in Plentywood, Mont. It was there he cut his professional teeth.

He has come a long way since witnessing the games evolvement from the days of lowball and high-draw to the newer and glittery Las Vegas-style games of Omaha and five card stud.

"Back in the day, every town had their game. Mine was seven card stud and lowball draw because I was from Scobey," he said.

His success with the game is unassuming, his lifestyle modest. He owns three older-model vehicles, which he parks in front of his comfortably-sized modular home.

His signature hand is the "Jack-10," or if luck permits, the "Jack 10 of hearts."

"It's my favorite hand because I've only lost to it once," he said. To this day he contends he lost on a technicality because the woman who beat him out didn't know she was holding the winning hand.

Today, he owns his own bar, Hyliners Casino, of Bainville, Mont., which he purchased two years ago for the sole purpose of getting more table time. Ironically, he thinks the bar might be slowing down his game because it limits the amount of days he can travel. He's toying with the idea of selling it.

Twice he has tested his skills in the World Series of Poker, held in Las Vegas, Nev.

"My greatest dream would be to take home the world championship," Weldele said. The first time was for a $2,000 buy-in limit game of Texas Holdem'. The second, was a $500 buy-in for casino owners.

"You remember the pots lost and situations when you got beat, more than you remember the happy, exuberant moments when you got to stack and count chips," he explained. He still recalls leaving the Regina Casino, in Canada, $1,615 dollars lighter, and without the $3,500 pot he was vying for.

No limit games are of an entirely different nature, he said. "I've seen guys throw down $10,000 bets and lose."

Weldele said that one of the biggest reasons poker is gaining popularity in mainstream society, is the Internet, where many on-line poker sites are attracting new players. With more than 30 years of experience at the table, he said that poker players who cut their teeth via computer screen, wouldn't stand a chance in a live game. "If you don't play in a live game, you don't really know what poker is all about," he said.

For him, poker is about people and reading them. "You have to be able to sit down and socialize, look as though your not paying attention, and all the while, take notice of everything going on around you," Weldele remarked.

Confinement to a wheelchair, following a childhood illness, has done little to keep him from an opportunity to play in a game. He still drives, having had a special shifter installed in his 1972 Buick Riviera. The license plate reads, 'Rounder.'

While in his early 20s, the only thing he could ever guarantee for himself, was a bag of popcorn in his refrigerator. Still learning how to properly manage and consider potential loses, he wanted to make sure he had something to subsist on for several days, if such occasions arose. They did.

"The key to rounding is money management. You've got to know when to call it quits so that you can have enough cash for the next nights game," he cautioned.

Early in the days, he didn't have that discipline. He said that many of his early loses led him to nearly calling it quits. Years later he recalls still waking up in cold sweats, after dreaming about some of those loses.

His favorite movie is "Rounders," a film that details the lifestyle he is so familiar with. He's seen it 40 times and said that it offers a truthful glimpse into the life of gambling. His only beef is that it personifies cheating in a way he has never witnessed at a table.

"Everybody knows that cheating occurs, but you don't see people getting beaten into the gutter," he explained.

Weldele never plans to retire. "I love going day by day, living by the seat of my pants," he said. Today, he lives in Bainville.