TEXAS HOLDEM ONLINE POKER

As implausible as it seems, a generation of young adults weaned in the age of Sega, Nintendo and PlayStation has found uncommon satisfaction in picking up an old-fashioned deck of Hoyles.

For the first time in recent history, experts say, interest in the card game of poker has trumped the muscular might of graphics-driven video game systems like XBox, even during the Christmas season.

"I love the fact that old school games are taking center stage in front of the flashier games that used to exist," said Dean Tsouvalas, writer of the Lycos 50. "Poker is by far the most popular game this year."

Lycos 50 summarizes the 50 hottest searches by millions of computer users who search the Internet with the help of the Lycos search engine. Poker is 10th on the list and has remained on the Top 50 list for the past 10 months.

Interest among high school kids is particularly strong, leading to a glut of poker-related Christmas gifts sold by retailers that wouldn't ordinarily carry any casino-style products, from the $8 poker sets at KB Toys to the $125 sets at Brookstone.

"We usually can't keep them in stock," remarked Sue Stypa, an assistant manager at Things Remembered in Walden Galleria, which sells engraved boxed poker sets for $50. "And believe it or not, they're going to kids, teenagers."

Six mall stores had prominent Texas HoldEm poker and casino-related gift ideas featured at their entrances. KB Toys, which caters to children and younger teenagers, offered several different versions of the Texas Hold 'Em poker set as well as professional-weight chips.

For an older generation of men and women who have spent decades at the card tables playing poker, bridge and pinochle, young latecomers to the poker game have little in common with the old masters.

A group of six played for small change at the Schiller Park Senior Center on a recent Friday, choosing from among a dozen variations of the game.

"Keeps us sharp," said one senior, tapping her temple.

They traded stories about how they played for peanuts as children and wrinkled their noses at "celebrity" poker players who don't possess a whit of strategy.

Glamour has little in common with fundamental card smarts, they said.

Regardless, it's the glamour and high-stakes competition of televised poker tournaments that have high schoolers stacking poker chips at the dining room table instead of standing in line at the movies on a Friday night.

Texas HoldEm, the game of choice for televised poker tournaments, is their choice, too. Tournament sets of the now-popular poker variation are making their way onto Christmas lists.

Evan Lewis and his sister Natalie formed their poker group of Canisius High School students in the fall after watching poker tournament play on ESPN.

"I heard from a lot of guys that poker is what guys do when they don't have a date," said Evan, 17.

One recent evening, the gang gathered in a friend's wood-paneled basement, pulling chairs up to the old dinette table. "Dogs Playing Poker" hung overhead as the dealer set up.

Evan and his friends chip in $5 each at the start of the weekly tournament, which rotates among the friends' houses and typically includes a pizza break. According to the rules, once your $5 stack of chips is gone, you're out of the game.

"The most you can lose is $5," Evan said. "We all like agreed on it. Ten dollars is a little too much, but $5 is perfect."

His younger sister, Natalie, the only girl of the group, has been chided for her poor Texas HoldEm poker face. But she wasted no time cleaning out her challengers her first time at the table.

"Nobody wants her to play now," Evan said. "She's a card shark."

Robbie Blinkoff, a Buffalo native who now works in Baltimore as a cultural anthropologist studying consumer behavior, said it's no surprise to him that poker playing is overtaking high-tech gadgetry as the attention getter among teenage youth.

"Actually, the trend among these younger generations is to find things away from technology," he said. "Teens are looking for more face-to-face meetings."

Back at the Schiller Park Senior Center, Joe Setlock frowned.

Easily acknowledged as the shark of the small-time poker club, the 81-year-old man admits to visiting the poker tables at the casino on occasion.

What he has seen there scares him.

"I see young kids, not even 20, playing with big money," he said. "I can't understand where they're getting that money."

Setlock may be a skilled poker player, but he said he has watched these kinds of games ruin lives. As a longtime card player who played for stakes in high school, he said he's reluctant to see other kids follow the same course.

It's up to parents to make sure that what starts out as a fun pastime doesn't end up becoming the start of an addiction for higher-stakes play, said Renee Wert, director of the Jewish Family Service Gambling Recovery Program, a nonsectarian treatment program in Buffalo.

While most teenagers will never grow up to be problem gamblers, a few will, she said. And like drugs or alcohol, gambling is an addiction to be reckoned with.

"Older adolescents and young adults have twice the rate of gambling problems as adults who are older," Wert said. "You have people who are at higher risk of developing a gambling risk."