TEXAS HOLDEM ONLINE POKER
TEXAS HOLDEM ONLINE POKER
|
|
Texas Holdem poker sweeping country |
|
Even though he had yet to see
a single card, Jim Penna had made his first poker decision of the night. "Rule number one," said the former Pittsburgh radio host and current television anchor in Johnstown, "Don't sit with guys wearing cowboy hats." Such headgear was relatively scarce among the group of 253 card players who paid $250 for the right to cram into a former music store in suburban Johnstown's Galleria Mall on this night for a Texas Holdem tournament. But there were a few Cowboy hats, and eliminating them from the list of potential table mates was a start. It turned out Penna and his fellow competitors should have avoided not the would-be cowboys, but an honest-to-goodness practicing dentist, Dr. George Bauer, who whipped this field, earning a $10,000 buy-in for the World Series of Poker no-limit championship later this week in Las Vegas, as well as $2,000 for expenses. Bauer was playing in his first tournament, but he's no poker novice. He plays regularly with family and friends. It was his friends, who were playing cards at a birthday party, that Bauer consulted when he was given the option of taking the $10,000 in cash and skipping the World Series. "Half of them told me to take the money. Half of them told me to go," he said. There is no Mrs. Bauer, so the 50-year-old bachelor opted for the tournament entry. Then, he went to the birthday party late and played more cards. "I lost," Bauer said with a chuckle. Like millions across the nation, and even more around the world, Bauer is a relatively recent convert to Texas Holdem, a game of burgeoning popularity. You can see taped play of the game virtually any day of the week, on outlets ranging from Fox and ESPN to the Travel Channel and Bravo. As the announcers intone faithfully each week on the Travel Channel's World Poker Tour broadcasts, this is a game that takes a minute to learn, but a lifetime to master. Bauer doesn't consider himself anywhere near a master, despite his tournament win. "I got lucky," he said the day after winning the two-day affair. "I think this was my one moment of glory." Poker nation The estimates vary widely, but tend to agree that there are in excess of 50 million poker players in the United States. The variations of poker are many, but it is Texas Holdem that has captured the gambling crowd's imagination. "It's all anyone wants to play any more," said Marty, a 24-year-old resident of suburban Pittsburgh, who makes the rounds of underground cash games in and around the city. A college graduate with a degree in mechanical engineering, Marty plays poker for income while he waits to land a job in his field. "I enjoy playing," he said. "To say I make a job out of it is a stretch, but I've made a decent living so far in the few months I've been out of school. I live comfortably, but I'm still at home and my expenses are minimal." The basic play of Texas Holdem doesn't vary. Each player begins with two hole cards dealt face down. There is a round of betting, then three cards are flopped face up in the middle of the table. More betting. A fourth, or "turn" card is flopped. More betting. The fifth or "river" card is flopped. More betting. The winner is the one who can make the best five-card hand, using his cards and/or the common cards in the center. Marty said the games he plays in tend to have capped betting by rounds. For example, there might be $5 bet limits in early rounds and $10 on the last two. Often the number of raises per round is capped at three or four, meaning a $5 bet on an early round could be re-raised to $10, to $15 and then to $20. "A game we play a lot is like they have at the Tropicana in Atlantic City called the 'Pink Game,' " Marty said, explaining the pink chips are valued at $2.50 each and bets are $7.50 and $15. "If I bought in for $250 in a pink game and if I double my money, it's a good night." In no-limit or Texas Holdem, the game played on television and at the Johnstown tournament, at any time a player can wager the entire stack of chips he has before him, making this a game of intense psychological pressure. At the end of a major tournament such as the World Series of Poker, millions can be exchanged in a single hand. Anyone can win Explanations for the popularity of Holdem are many. "Holdem isn't a sport, but it is a way for guys to say 'I'm better than you,' " said Joe, a 22-year-old college senior majoring in computer information systems and business administration management, who plays cash games and small tournaments in bars, back rooms and homes and around Pittsburgh. "They can't do it on the basketball court any more, so they do it with their mind. "I'm normally the youngest guy there. Mainly it's 30- to 50-year-olds with $50,000 incomes who have money to burn. That's the type of guys I want. They're normally just starting and don't know how to play." But conventional poker wisdom has taken a hit in the past two World Series of Poker. Amateurs, disparagingly referred to as "dead money," have won in 2002 and 2003. The quintessential story of Cinderella wearing a green eyeshade was written last year, when the aptly named Chris Moneymaker walked off with the $2.5 million first prize. It was the Nashville accountant's first live tournament. He'd earned his $10,000 seat by entering and winning an online tournament. His total investment was $40. Moneymaker was part of a field of 800-plus last year. The 2004 World Series of Poker $10,000 buy-in tournament, which begins Saturday at its customary Binion's Horseshoe Casino home, is expected to have upwards of 1,200 entries. Bauer wasn't counting on being the man who would make it three straight amateur champions. "I really doubt that I will," he said, "but it would be nice." The success of Moneymaker has fueled the imaginations of the dreamers. A story making the rounds at the Johnstown tournament was of a player who'd plopped down his last $250 in the hope of making to Las Vegas. It wasn't the eventual winner Bauer. Joe Callihan, a 38-year-old surveying the field of fellow competitors before the tournament, observed, "I see guys in here who ain't got two nickels to rub together. I've got to buy them a beer when we go to a bar." A competitor of a different stripe was Dennis Toth, a 51-year-old part owner of a pet store across the mall walkway. Toth, wearing a camouflage hat and sun glasses and brandishing a chair cushion, had arrived early and assumed a seat with his back to the room's rear wall. "They don't stand a chance," he said of his competitors. "They might as well go home." Things didn't work out as well for Toth as he'd expected. Others in the Johnstown field were looking at this more as an adventure. "I love cards. It's in my blood, I guess," said 34-year-old Melody Vuckovich, a disabled Army veteran. "I hope I win. But whether I win or lose, I still have fun." Tom Callihan, a 38-year-old fifth-grade teacher at a suburban Johnstown school district and Joe's twin brother, had begun with a relatively modest goal. "I just want to make it until Sunday," he'd said. It turns out, no one made it until Sunday. The tournament ended Saturday night, more quickly than organizers had anticipated. Callihan estimated there were 50-some competitors left when he was eliminated Saturday afternoon, after going all-in because he was short on chips with ace-king, or "Big Slick." The opponent had pocket aces and won. His brother, Joe, had experienced a more brutal sendoff. Playing pocket 5's, he flopped two more for an almost unbeatable hand of four 5's. But his opponent called his bets and on the last card, beat him by filling a straight flush. "You could hear him yelling all over the room," Tom said of Joe. Who needs Vegas or AC? Not that long ago, area poker players had limited options if they wanted to pursue their hobby legally. Increasingly, though, Texas Holdem tournaments are being held as fund-raisers for charitable organizations. The Johnstown event was held in the name of Crime Stoppers. Tournament director Jeff Bidelman, operator of a collectibles store in the mall, said licensing permits an organizer to hold a limited number of such tournaments each year, as long as they are to raise money for a charitable organization. "You've got to do it by the numbers, exactly as the law demands," he said. Also, online play has allowed gamblers to operate from their home computer, with questions of legality regarding these off-shore based sites murky enough to make it legitimate. The increased speed of play online allows players to build experience more quickly. But the two young Pittsburgh gamblers, Marty and Joe, see the online games as too loose and populated largely by the uninitiated, which makes them tough to read. "If you play people who don't understand the odds and percentages, you can throw all the books out the window," Marty said. Said Joe: "Online poker and live poker are two different games. Most new people start online and think it's the same game. You need to be able to detect tells and read people in live games. A lot of people from the Internet, although one won the World Series last year, they don't necessarily know how to play." What people do know is they like to play this game called Texas holdem. Television ratings indicate they like to watch it played, too. This is a wave that doesn't yet seem to have crested. |
|
|
Back to Texas Holdem Online Poker
|
|