TEXAS HOLDEM ONLINE POKER

A player who wanted to remain unidentified collects his winnings after a hand of Texas Hold ’Em Poker. Gerald Thomas gets a laugh out of a comment made by another player during a game of Texas Hold 'Em Poker. The popularity of the game has soared since ESPN began covering the World Series of Poker. Bob James, left foreground, and Gerald Thomas carry on a conversation while Bonnie Wheeler gets set to deal another round at Casino Aztar on Friday.

In his dreams, David Cupps paid the $10,000 entry fee for the 2004 World Series of Poker, battled his way through day after day of no-limit Texas HoldEm, and landed at the final table, with only a few legends separating him from a $5 million pot.

Where the 58-year-old state of Indiana employee from Bedford actually finished was much different. He made it through four days of play, going out in an "all-in" blaze of glory at the hands of a man who made his way into the prestigious tournament by way of Internet play.

Cupps finished 219th out of 2,600 competitors - good enough to get his money back, but tantalizingly close enough to even bigger money to make him want to set aside the cash and go back for more in 2005.

Cupps' run will not be among those documented this week when ESPN begins its pre-recorded broadcast of the 2004 World Series of Poker, but it is symbolic of how popular Texas HoldEm has become in America.

ESPN will air two hours of the World Series of Poker every Tuesday at 8 p.m. Other games featured during the telecast will include Seven-Card Stud and Pot Limit Omaha HoldEm. This year's champion was Greg "Fossilman" Raymer, a 39-year-old patent attorney from Stonington, Conn.

Last year, an average of 1.2 million people tuned into the cable sports network's coverage of the Las Vegas event. The shows became as popular with novices trying to learn the basics of the game as it did with the seasoned poker players looking for the most subtle of advantages in their regular HoldEm contests.

The game even has trickled down to college campuses and Internet sites. Casinos - including Aztar in Evansville - are struggling to keep up with the demand for space in poker rooms as more and more players get confident enough to leave the card table in their den for a shot at bigger money

"Everybody's playing now," said Cupps, who took up the game in 1986. "If you look at some Internet sites, some of them have 40,000 people on there playing HoldEm."

The rules for Texas HoldEm are simple: Each player is dealt two cards. After the first bet, the dealer turns three "community" cards - the "flop" - that all players can use to make their best hand. After another bet, the dealer turns a fourth community card. After another bet, the fifth and final community card, "the river," is turned onto the table.

After a final round of betting, the best five-card hand wins based on regular poker rules - from royal flush down to pairs and high cards.

In many games, there are betting limits - for instance, the opening bet may be $10, with a $20 maximum. At the World Series of Poker, there is no betting limit, so players can wager all their chips - go "all-in" - at any time.

Matt Humphrey, a 21-year-old senior at the University of Southern Indiana, picked up the basics of the game from the ESPN broadcasts. Then he started playing in home games. Before long, he was reading poker books and playing often enough - and well enough - to finance a chunk of his college education.

Like Humphrey, ESPN's viewers could take lessons as graphics displayed the professional players' two "hole" cards. And as the dealer turned the five community cards onto the table, each player's odds of winning popped onto the screen.

Humphrey, and a lot of other new players, were inspired by 2003 World Series of Poker champion Chris Moneymaker, a Tennessee accountant who played his way into the tournament through the Internet. As Moneymaker rolled through the World Series to millions in winnings, no-limit HoldEm took on a life of its own.

Players who had never been interested in the game before saw a spark - they could play this game, even against the legends.

So Humphrey started playing and studying. He balanced schoolwork with nights of reading tip books by poker legends such as Doyle Brunson.

The game's popularity caught on with such force last year that when school began in September, Humphrey found all the action he needed, and also discovered that the game was too much for some.

"I set rules for myself on how much I'll stand to lose," Humphrey said. "Some guys can't handle it. They can't keep up with their classes or they lose too much money."

And one thing to keep in mind: Technically, home gambling is illegal, Vanderburgh County Prosecutor Stan Levco said. "It's illegal, but it's a low priority for the police, and I know it's a low priority for me," Levco said. "I wouldn't say it won't be enforced, but it's a low priority."

Humphrey and his friends play cards with a television on in the background - usually tuned to a poker show, if one is on. This week, it'll be the World Series replay. Other nights, it could be the World Poker Tour shows on the Travel Channel or the Celebrity Poker Showdown on Bravo.

"I'm not sure if it's a fad or if it's here to stay," Humphrey said. "But when I came back to school last year, everyone was talking about it, and it felt like it had formed its own subculture."

At Casino Aztar, the popularity of Texas HoldEm has patrons waiting in line on some nights for spots at the casino's poker tables. Aztar recently finished renovations that allowed the addition of an eighth table. At the HoldEm tables, 10 people can sit at any given time. At the seven-card stud tables, up to eight can sit.

But seven-card stud is almost an afterthought to many players now, according to Barbara Prather, the poker room manager at Casino Aztar.

"These no-limit games on television have everyone stirred up," said Prather, who worked at the World Series of Poker from the 1970s through 1992. "No-limit HoldEm is what the people want to play, and at one time, it really was a game of the past.

"The television coverage has changed that," she said. "These guys on television now, they're legends."

Prather is a legend in her own right. She is friends with several of the game's biggest celebrities, including Brunson, Amarillo Slim and Johnny Chan. Casino Aztar sends her to its other properties to train poker room employees.

The key to the popularity of poker rooms, she said, is that the casinos have taken the home games - long populated by pretzel-munching, cigar-smoking men - and moved them inside the casino. Different days bring different games and different betting limits.

Prather started playing poker for quarters in Corpus Christi, Texas. When she grew up, she went to work at the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas, migrating across the street every year to Binion's to work the World Series of Poker.

She helped open a 16-room poker club in Los Angeles in the 1980s, and came to Evansville in 1999.

Prather knows almost all of Casino Aztar's players by name, face and playing style. And she knows that as the game grows in popularity, it will also grow in complexity. Every player is looking for every advantage against every opponent.

They watch for how a cigarette is smoked, how a drink is sipped, or how a moustache is rubbed. "I've always said what man invents, poker players can beat," Prather said, laughing.

And that's what players such as Cupps and Humphrey are looking for - ways to someday be the next Chris Moneymaker. To be the legend, fresh out of nowhere with nothing to do but play cards and dream of riches.

Cupps only has a few pieces of advice to offer for newer players. Among them:

"It's like the Kenny Rogers song," he said, referring to "The Gambler." "You've got to know when to holdem and know when to foldem. There's a lot of truth to that song."