On a dark and
unusually warm October night last year, Jonathan Salois found himself at
a smoke and cigar shop in Salem, N.H.
As he stepped up to
the head of a line of fans waiting to meet World Series of Poker 2004
champion Greg "The Fossilman" Raymer, Salois asked not for an autograph,
but for an interview.
"He said, 'Grab a
seat, let's get started,' " Salois said. "He signed autographs and
talked to people, but he talked to me at the same time, for probably
half an hour."
Salois, a
23-year-old Winthrop man, was not just pursuing the story as a budding
journalist, but also as an online poker player himself. He started
playing about four months ago, the legacy of learning the game in
college. He now plays every weekend and two to three times on weekdays.
Raymer is famous not
just for his Texas Holdem poker skill, but because he won his seat by
playing online. Like Salois, Raymer picked up poker in college.
As online poker
enjoys a popularity surge on the back of television shows like Celebrity
Poker and personalities like Raymer, younger players are emerging. Part
of the trend is fueled by Web sites targeted at the youth market. Some,
like http://collegepoker championship.com, can have as many as 10,000
players worldwide at the same time, even doling out scholarships to
winners.
Salois, a hockey
referee, is far enough along into the game to have acquired a nickname
-- a must-have for serious players. His is "hackey," and it comes from a
hackey-sack he fiddles with while playing. (Raymer's comes from fossils
he uses as card protectors.) His parents have grown used to his habit by
now, and don't mind it "as long as it doesn't turn into a problem."
Perhaps what is
unusual about players like Salois, and his friend Adam Randall, a
University of Maine at Augusta student, is that they do not fall to the
lure of playing big.
"In college, we
played quarter games, or dollar games," Salois said. "Every once in
while we play $5 to $10 games." His biggest losses run up to about $30
or $40.
For Salois, who says
he is "terrible at counting cards," the point is to relieve tension and
socialize.
"There's a (online)
sidebar with a chat tab, and for the most part, it's pretty friendly,"
he said.
Randall, 24, plays
the game more often, logging on nearly every day, he said. He picked the
game up three years ago, also in college. But the stakes stay low.
"You can play as big
as $200 or $400, or as low as $5 or $10 or even 5 cents or 10 cents," he
said. "The (Web) sites don't make money."
Brian Lessels, a
freshman at Colby College, said that he is an avid player, sometimes
going through days on end of playing online. But he often plays for no
money at all. "There are all kinds of free services," Lessels said.
"It's just a lot of exhilaration."
The game is not
rampant at Colby, but it isn't hard finding someone to play poker with,
said Lessels, who picked the game up in high school with friends.
Wednesday nights would sometimes be poker nights in his dining hall.
For those like
Salois, the appeal of the game partly lies in its quirky traditions.
Raymer wears glasses with hologram eye prints, Salois pointed out. The
championship winner for 2003, Chris Moneymaker, sports Oakley sunglasses
as his talisman.
But television
broadcasters, quick to sense any youth trend, play a part. The Travel
Channel runs the World Poker Tour, while Bravo shows Celebrity Poker.
ESPN has taken to running the 2004 World Series of Poker and even old
games from the early 1990s.
"I guess it gets the
blood flowing watching it," Salois said. "It gets you excited to play."
And when the game
gets going, the buzz begins.
"As long as you're
not losing, you're into the zone," Salois said. "You kind of see things
before they happen. That's the fine line, between people who say it's a
luck game, and people who say it's a skill game."
Some would warn
against the well-known dangers of falling into the gambling habit, even
as they laud the social aspects of playing.
"If it's done for
gambling, it can be just as addictive as drugs or overeating," said Bert
Jacobs, chairman of the psychology department at the University of Maine
at Farmington. "But if it's done for socialization, then I don't see any
harm in it."
Jacobs does not
think much of online poker, since he believes players who log on are in
fact playing against computer programs. But he acknowledges that poker
has an enduring appeal in this society.
"A large component
of it is bluffing, the ability to impose yourself on others by tricking
them," he said. "Some people find that very attractive. But I don't
believe poker is any more evil than chess. Also, it goes back to the
Wild West. It's a way for people to develop a community."
Still, sales of
poker products appears to have picked up at local retailers.
"We have seen an
increase in that type of paraphernalia, probably because of the
television shows," said Julie Gilbert, manager of Skowhegan's Wal-Mart.
"We're selling more cards and chips. In bigger stores, the (card
playing) tables do very well. It started this summer, and we expect it
to go through the holiday season."
Most who buy the
paraphernalia are male, Gilbert said, in the 20-to-30 age range,
"especially the guys heading up for weekend going to camp," she said.
"It sells well, but
it's not like we're not bringing in extra to keep up with demand," said
Gerald Tyler, manager of Augusta's Wal-Mart.
For all its current
popularity, the game's young online fans don't expect it to last. Salois
believes the television shows are jumping on a bandwagon while the trend
lasts -- "Its popularity will start to wane," he predicted.
"It's very 'in'
right now, but I'm not sure if it will stick around," Randall said. "It
might peak out at some point and level off."
