TEXAS HOLDEM ONLINE POKER

Eric Randell laid his cards down with a slow flourish, and a man to his left groaned.

The kid's straight had just taken the hand.

Randell leaned forward, scooping the pile of chips to his chest. He deftly sorted them into neat stacks several rows wide across the green felt.

"I knew I was going to sit down at this poker table for a while," he said.

Around him, the office Christmas party was in mid-rip.

But he was staying put. His party was at the table.

Poker is the game of the season, apparently.

It's been turning up everywhere this year - from company get-togethers to college campuses to department-store shelves - driven by a nationwide Holdem fever started by cable shows that have turned the game into a public pastime.

Most of the credit usually goes to ESPN and the no-limit Holdem games at the World Series of Poker.

The series is an annual tournament played in Las Vegas, open to anyone who can front the $10,000 buy-in and make it through the qualification rounds.

ESPN has broadcast coverage of the series for the past few years. There was little hype at first.

Then came Chris Moneymaker. All it took to turn Texas Holdem into a phenomena was one amateur who made it big.

He was a 27-year-old accountant from Tennessee in 2003 when he entered an online-poker tournament and won a stake to the series. He borrowed travel money from friends and headed to Vegas to take his seat.

With only three years' playing experience, Moneymaker managed to outlast a casino full of pros to take the championship. He won the final round with a full house and took home $2.5 million.

And his win earned major ratings for ESPN.

"That's where most of the people have gotten the craze, watching Texas Holdem on ESPN," said Randell, a 20-year-old from Tallahassee who attends the University of Florida.

He saw it on TV his senior year of high school.

"It looked like fun," he said. "And it looked like you could make a lot of money if you were good.

"You know, everyone loves to take risks. Especially when there's money involved."

Everybody's doing it

Other cable networks jumped in for a piece of the action, too.

Travel Channel spokesman James Ashurst said his network's most popular show now is a weekly series called the "World Poker Tour." Meanwhile, Bravo has launched its own "Celebrity Poker Showdown" series with actors playing for charity.

All that TV coverage has helped give the game a whole new profile.

"Poker really has become part of mainstream America," Ashurst said. "We took it from the backroom and put it in the forefront."

Randell said he plays at least once a week, either online or with his frat brothers at UF. Spend $10 to get into the game, drink some beers, eat some pizza, and maybe do well enough to walk out with $100, he said.

It's a good time and hard to get in trouble staying at home with friends, he said.

Brian Rewiski owns an entertainment company in Tallahassee called GT Entertainment Casinos. He's been booked for 17 Christmas parties this year, and the poker table is always a hit, he said.

One frequent question he hears: "Is this the game I saw on TV?"

"It's kind of a hobby that people have taken to the next level," Rewiski said.

And retailers are betting on the fad for big sales this Christmas season.

Walgreens, Wal-Mart, Target, Sears, Toys "R" Us and dozens of other national chains are stocking everything from chips to hand-held video-poker games for holiday shoppers.

"It's huge right now," said Robert Davis, store director at the Toys "R" Us on Apalachee Parkway.

Last year, the store didn't have much in the way of poker. This Christmas, there isn't much the store doesn't have - poker chips, tables, cards and "all sorts of poker sets," Davis said.

Davis said most of the buyers are men ages 18 to 30. And he's even a poker player himself.

"I play it with my friends," he said. "It's a lot of fun."

Getting in on the game

The woman in the sequined dress squeezed into a seat next to Randell.

They were at a Christmas party thrown by a Tallahassee medical practice. Rewiski provided the entertainment.

"What are we playing?" the woman asked.

"Texas Holdem," Randell said. "You've got to get the five best cards."

That's the game most new poker converts swear by.

A dealer gives each player two cards, then deals three more onto the table, face up. The players try to put their two together with the table cards to come up with a winning hand.

If not, they each increase the bet, and the dealer lays out another card. Players can either fold or keep raising the bet until the dealer has cards on the table.

Then the best hand wins.

The appeal is that the game is fast-paced and easy to learn, according to Randell.

Not everyone can be a star football or basketball player - but anyone can learn to play Hold 'em, he said.

So there it is.

You just may get a deck of cards and some chips in your Christmas stocking this year. You'd better start practicing - the next World Series is only six months away.

And as Randell says:

"It's gotta beat working for a living."