THE sky's the limit to no-limit Texas Holdem
poker on TV.
The fad started by the Travel Channel's
"World Poker Tour" in 2002 is just getting
started, say some of the game's biggest stars.
"Not even in my wildest imagination did I ever
think that poker would get to the point that
it's at now," says poker champ Doyle Brunson,
who's been dominating the game for about 50
years. "I think it'll be maybe four or five more
years before interest starts waning a bit."
"This is just the beginning," says Johnny
Chan, one of the game's most feared players and
the all-time money-winning leader on "World
Series of Poker."
There are no less than four different
Texas Holdem
poker tournament shows on four different
channels this week alone, including games on
ESPN, Travel, Bravo and Fox Sports Net.
The "World Poker Tour" is the highest-rated
show on the Travel network and a Celebrity Poker
series is second only to "Queer Eye for the
Straight Guy" on Bravo.
The craze is showing no signs of running out of
steam.
"I've been playing
Texas Holdem
for over 30 years, and we've got more and more
new players now," says Chan, attributing the
leap in professional-caliber players solely to
the popularity of poker shows.
"Once they watch it, they start playing it. Once
they start playing it, they never quit," says
Chan, who plays next in the $1-million "Poker
Superstars Invitational Tournament, which was
held in June and will be telecast-RD> on Fox
Sports Net beginning Aug. 15.
All the attention seems to be both good and bad
for
Texas Holdem poker stars like Chan and Brunson,
whose book, "The System," is considered the
poker player's bible.
At
a recent taping of the "World Series of Poker,"
Brunson found himself more in demand with fans
than some of the biggest movie stars around.
"I
had Ben Affleck on one side of me and Toby
McGuire was on the other, and there was a line
about six or seven deep to get to me for a
picture or an autograph and I said to them, 'You
two bums get out of my way here,' " he laughs.
Chan says that before the TV shows came calling,
he could slip into a high-stakes game and
"people would try to run over me. Now they're
respectful and afraid."
