TV and Net deal
game a popularity boom
Kim Yoder is just
the kind of person that television producers wanted to find when they
started airing poker on the cable channels.
"I haven't played
in any home poker games since watching poker on TV," she said, "but I
have asked for the Texas HoldEm poker set for Christmas!"
Poker is not just
your grandfather's game any more, now that television has shown over
the past two years that brains and bluffs are what win the hands --
rather than cigars and six-guns.
Professionals and
college students have taken up the game, and so have women. The
gambling industry estimates that more than 50 million people play
poker.
"Watching does
make you want to play and see how you would do without the expert
commentators and hidden cameras," Yoder said.
She's a
stay-at-home mom in Lower Paxton Twp. and an attorney who said she's
hooked on "Celebrity Poker" and the "Poker Superstars Invitational,"
part of the poker on television.
The game's current
red-hot popularity began with the Travel Channel and spread to ESPN,
FOX Sports and Bravo -- then to the Internet and standard casinos.
There are multiple
tournaments in Atlantic City, where the Tropicana poker room has 43
poker tables and a Texas HoldEm poker tournament every day.
On the Internet,
about 1.3 million played in virtual casinos last month.
Texas game gains
hold:
Television ratings
for poker have been so good that four new shows are in development.
"The participants
are entertaining, and the game is fascinating," Yoder said. "Poker is
one of the few games of chance that requires skill, both in betting
and bluffing."
That is true
especially on television, where an old cowboy poker game called No
Limit Texas HoldEm has taken hold. On any one hand, it's possible to
lose entire chip stacks.
Guys with an ace
and a three will go all in -- bet everything they have -- in the hope
of stealing a pot from more timid players. Bluffing is such a force in
HoldEm that few games go to showdown, where bets are called and hands
revealed.
Sometimes played
at the rate of a hand a minute, it is so fast that it looks nothing
like the dramatic, drawn-out poker scenes in old cowboy movies.
How did Texas
HoldEm get to be top hand?
Several things
happened:
Las Vegas casino
legend Benny Binion created the first World Series of Poker in 1970.
Texas HoldEm, an obscure variant, became the major game.
Satellite
tournaments developed, and California legalized high-stakes poker.
Poker became sort of respectable for regular people.
The 1998 Matt
Damon movie "Rounders" glamorized poker for a new generation.
The Travel
Channel introduced the "lipstick camera" in 2003 for its coverage of
the World Poker Tour. The cameras let viewers see each player's hole
cards.
"Poker is
increasing in popularity at such a speedy rate, it's very easy to
recruit players," said Phil, a West Shore poker player who asked us
not to use his name because of the fuzzy legality of the games.
"Most of the games
are organized via e-mail. I could find a game almost every day if I
had the time and energy to scout out the games."
Players meet each
other on the Internet at sites such as www.homepokergames.com and set
up game nights, usually at somebody's house.
Phil started
playing before the current craze. He had tried other games and wanted
to find something he could win consistently.
"The beauty of
playing poker is that luck is a very small factor. Poker is a skill
game, so you just have to be better than the next guy," he said.
A good deal for
families:
Abraham Brown Jr.
of Carlisle, a computer technician who organizes poker tournaments,
said that budget factor is important to him.
"The beautiful
thing about Texas HoldEm tournaments is that what you buy in for --
say, $50 to get your chips -- is all that you can lose. I love that I
can spend $50, play cards for six hours, have a good time and at the
end of the night if I've lost, I've only lost $50."
The people playing
poker in central Pennsylvania range in age from 18 to 60, Phil said,
"and there is no age or sex barrier to overcome," something that Yoder
appreciates about the TV games.
"I love it when
the women win," she said. "I just think it's a cool thing to be a good
poker player."
That's just what
the producers of the Travel Channel's "World Poker Tour" were hoping.
Their new Web site is meant to bring families together for game
nights.
The WPT Family
Resource Center features poker rules and directions for playing poker
without betting money.
Instead, the WPT's
idea for betting is almost as valuable as cash: chores. For example,
the person with the fewest chips at the end of the game has to take
the garbage out for a week.
Playing for money
online:
Many youths from
middle school to college already know more about the game than their
parents do.
Poker is muscling
in on computer games, and teenage poker nights are the new big thing
in suburbia. Often, kids will tolerate the presence of -- gasp -- Mom
or Dad, if they want to sit in.
For these parents,
poker is a decent alternative to a lot worse things their sons and
daughters might be doing. And it requires strategy and math.
As one mother told
The New York Times, "The kids usually left at the end are the ones
with the highest SAT scores."
Adults playing
poker online, though, are usually playing for money. Because credit
card companies may not allow payments to online poker rooms, online
money transfer services have blossomed.
Organizers have
tried to answer criticism from gambling opponents by limiting the
amount any one player can lose in a day or a week.
Whether online
poker for money is legal might be sorted out in the next few years.
Steve Badger, who
runs PlayWinningPoker.com, said he believes the legal burden falls on
the person organizing the game.
"No person has
been charged, let alone brought to trial, let alone convicted, let
alone sentenced for playing online poker," he wrote in "Online Poker
and United States Law."
"But this does not
guarantee one or more of these things will not happen in the future."
