TEXAS HOLDEM ONLINE POKER

The North Tonawanda graduate called an aggressive opponent's $1,500 bet to see the next three cards: 4, 5, 6 of multiple suits - garbage. The bully flashed $2,000 with authority.

Soda decided to toss away his cards, but first he stalled, a ploy to let the other players think he might be mucking a good hand. He fingered his chips. He studied his foe for any mannerisms that could help on a later hand.

Then Soda noticed something to change his mind. He said it "looked like a cartoon" when he saw the bully's jugular vein throb harder and faster with every passing second. In a moment, Soda went from folding his hand to going for the kill.

"I raised him a huge part of my stack," Soda said. "The feeling that I had inside of me once he threw his cards away was indescribable. It was a huge relief.
"When that happens it's such a huge release, and you feel like The Man. If you can get one of those a day, it's just great."

It was the type of moment for which poker players live, the sort of drama that has helped poker become an explosive phenomenon, enticing millions to watch on television and several million more to play online or in live poker rooms such as the one in the Seneca Niagara Casino in Niagara Falls.

Poker has emerged from backrooms and basements to the sporting mainstream. The timeless game, particularly a version known as no-limit Texas holdem, is virtually everywhere thanks to a convergence of inviting television technology and easy Internet access.

This year's World Series of Poker, which ran April 22-May 28, featured 2,576 entrants competing for a $5 million grand prize, a purse that surpasses the aggregate championship payouts of the Masters, Indianapolis 500, Kentucky Derby and Wimbledon.

Connecticut-based patent attorney Greg Raymer won the prestigious tournament at the Horseshoe Casino in Las Vegas. David Williams, a junior economics major at Southern Methodist University, finished second to win $3.5 million.

Soda finished in the money at 218th, good enough for $10,000.

The World Series of Poker grew so substantially from last year to this that the top payout doubled the record $2.5 million the aptly named Chris Moneymaker, an accountant from Tennessee, collected for winning in 2003.

By comparison, poker legend Johnny Moss picked up $30,000 when he won the World Series of Poker in 1971.

"A year ago, I don't know that anybody could have predicted poker would be the next big thing," said Mike Antinoro, executive producer for ESPN Original Entertainment. "It's really incredible how it's taken over."

Poker is one of the hottest programs on TV networks of all kinds. "The World Poker Tour" has become the signature series of the Travel Channel. Bravo has "Celebrity Poker Showdown." NBC uses poker to compete against the Super Bowl.

Fox Sports Net has two series - "Late Night Poker" and "Championship Poker at the Plaza" - and will present the first live poker broadcast with a $1 million tournament Wednesday at Turning Stone Resort and Casino near Syracuse.

But no network has embraced the poker craze like the self-acclaimed "worldwide leader in sports." ESPN's second World Series of Poker season began Tuesday night and will run through mid-September. The network last month dedicated an incredible 22 hours of a 24-hour span to air reruns of last year's World Series of Poker.

ESPN also signed a multiyear deal with the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City to air the U.S. Poker Championship in January and February.

"We're getting behind it because it does well and our audience wants it," Antinoro said. "It's gained its own attention. We're just riding the wave, and we're going to promote it."

The NHL would love to have ratings similar to ESPN's 2003 World Series of Poker, which was shown on seven tape-delay installments yet steadily gained viewers as the series progressed. The finale - shown months after it occurred - scored a 1.94 rating. Live NHL games on ESPN hovered around a 0.5 rating.

ESPN, with backing from corporate heavyweights in the brewing, automotive and pharmaceutical industries, expanded this year's World Series of Poker to 22 episodes.

The first 13 episodes will show a variety of poker disciplines, such as seven-card stud, razz and Omaha, while the final nine episodes will feature the standard: no-limit Texas holdem.

Mike Gainey is intimately familiar with the game's television boom.

The director of poker operations for Seneca Niagara's properties in Niagara Falls, Salamanca and Irving has spent 30 years in the poker business and staged the most lucrative World Poker Tour event while running poker operations for the Reno Hilton.

"I think it's just going to continue to grow," Gainey said. "You've had casinos in recent years close their poker rooms to install slot machines. Now they're taking the machines out and putting the poker rooms back.

"If they maintain the television exposure and don't try to move too fast, then it will continue to grow. People will keep getting hooked."

The key to poker's television success has been the implementation of a small camera that allows viewers to see a player's otherwise-private cards.

"Seeing the hole cards is like knowing what play the football coach is calling in the huddle," said Jeff Shulman, president of leading poker magazine Card Player.

"Holdem is a much bigger bluffing game, and bluffs are exciting. That's what's selling poker on TV. You used to know bluffs were going on, but now you're seeing it."

Holdem is thrilling to play, but without those voyeuristic cameras it was rather dull to watch on TV whenever networks tried in the past.

A quick introduction to holdem:

• Each player receives and bets on the two "hole cards" only he or she can use.

• Three community cards (also known as "the flop") are revealed, followed by another round of betting.

• A fourth community card ("the turn") precedes more betting action.

• After the fifth community card ("the river") is flipped over, final bets are made and players show their hands, using the best five cards of the seven available.

Holdem becomes even more riveting when it's played no-limit. There's no maximum bet, meaning a player can push all of his money into the pot at anytime.

The ability to go "all-in" creates the biggest drama because, as Soda said, "The bluff is so important in poker. Without the bluff it would just be pinochle or euchre or any other card game."

Soda dropped out of the University of Rochester and enjoyed brief success as a pro bowler before getting into the computer industry and moving to Southern California. He started playing poker in the legal card rooms there but soon found himself making enough money at Internet poker to quit his job.

The 29-year-old, who has since moved back to the City of Tonawanda, said he made $48,000 last year playing poker online. Two weeks ago, he won a cyber-tournament that paid him $3,600 for a couple of hours' work. He won his World Series of Poker seat after investing $300 and placing in an online event.

Soda is able to make Internet poker profitable because so many others are playing - for real money and for pretend chips - on sites such as PartyPoker.com, PokerStars.com, ParadisePoker.com and UltimateBet.com.

"You have all these people learning how to play holdem poker online," Shulman said. "It used to be the only way to play it was at a couple tournaments a year and at the few casinos in the world that offered it. Now you can play it right in your own home."

In one 24-hour period Monday, $101 million was wagered in online poker rooms, according to PokerPulse.com, a site that monitors the industry.

Local poker enthusiasts can get the latest information or discuss the game in open forums at BuffaloPoker.com.

"America's in love with poker, but it will never be as good as it is right now," Soda said. "Once enough people exercise their right to play a little bit, they'll lose what they can afford and then they'll realize, "Hey, I can't afford to keep doing this.' "

Others not only disagree, they're also banking on poker's continued growth.

"I don't think it's slowing down," Antinoro said. "It's bringing people back to the game again. People are following it. More and more people know more and more of these players. The personalities are there.

"The pots keep getting bigger and bigger."