TEXAS HOLDEM ONLINE POKER

The lady with the sign-up sheet sees plenty of familiar faces among the 20 or so who are turned away.

"Happens every weekend,'' she says. "These guys show up five minutes before the tournament starts and expect to get in.''

Five years ago maybe, but with the poker craze spreading like wildfire across North America and Europe, there's no such thing as walking in at the last minute anymore.

Not when newcomers are lined up around the block and poker rooms are struggling to find enough dealers and tables to accommodate them.

"It's been like this for the last few months,'' said 31-year old James Zak, who's been playing serious poker for about eight years. "Every week there seems to be more and more people.''

The game has always enjoyed a cult following, but back-to-back Cinderella stories at the World Series of Poker and the subsequent proliferation of Internet sites and TV coverage have triggered a mainstream explosion.

"When Chris Moneymaker won the World Series two years ago it was a huge boost,'' said retired businessman and 2002 Canadian Limit HoldEm champion Buddy Ashmore of St. Albert.

"It cost him $39 to get his entry in an Internet satellite tournament and he won $2.5 million. That really got everyone's attention. There were 839 players in the championship event when he won, last year there were 2,577 and first prize jumped to $5 million.''

And when another Internet qualifier, Greg Raymer, knocked off a final table full of legends to win it all, it got crazy. TV tournaments swarmed the channels, traffic on Internet sites went ballistic and they're expecting 6,000 players will pony up the $10,000 entry fee for this summer's World Series in Vegas.

"I've seen stories about poker on ABC News and 20/20. There's going to be a Red Sox vs. Yankees poker tournament, one between the east coast and west coast rappers ...'' said Zak. "It's everywhere, and it's all because of Chris Moneymaker. People used to think poker was played in basements and bars, for gangsters and drug dealers, but they're starting to realize it's a skill game that can be a recreational pastime.''

The field in search of the $1,000 first prize at Baccarat is as eclectic as you'll find in any coffee house. Old, young, men, women, veterans, rookies and everything in between.

"It's a younger crowd now, and more mainstream,'' said tournament player Dean Koluk, 34. "It's not as taboo. You can sit down with anyone from 18 to 65 and enjoy the game. It's not age- biased or gender-biased at all. You can be 80 and be better than a player who's 20.''

Koluk has won the Baccarat tournament twice. On this day he finished 11th.

"I got run over by a guy with a bad kicker. I had A-9 suited and he had A-6 and his six came on the river. That's poker.''

Nothing has contributed more to the poker explosion than television. Rarely a night goes by that you can't find a game on TV somewhere: Celebrity Poker, World Poker Tour, WPT Hollywood Home Game, Poker at the Plaza, European Poker Tour and Caribbean Poker Classic are all pulling in big audiences. The 2005 World Series will draw nearly two million viewers a night.

TSN, which began televising No Limit HoldEm in 2001, nearly doubled its coverage - from 64 hours in 2003 to 100 in 2004 - after the Moneymaker win. The shows average 157,000 viewers, nearly half of what a Brier draws. In the US, ESPN's poker audience grew from 408,000 to 1.3 million last year, well ahead of NHL hockey.

On Super Bowl Sunday, NBC took a huge chunk of CBS's pre-game audience with a two-hour tournament of champions.

"It's a made-for-TV game,'' said Randy Hewines, owner and president of the 44-event Canadian Poker Tour.

"There are characters, there are heroes, there are villains - and anybody can do it. That's the beauty of it. Anybody can buy in and play against the pros.''

Innovations like lipstick cameras that reveal hole cards, and graphics that show a player's odds of winning, let viewers second-guess to their heart's content. Whether you play poker or not, it is truly compelling theatre to watch somebody who just missed a flush draw put a $5 million tournament on the line by trying to bluff his opponent into folding a pair of jacks.

"We turned poker into a spectator sport,'' said Steve Lipscomb, creator of the World Poker Tour. "Now when you're watching you feel like you're right in the seat playing with them.''

Zak has two home computers up and running on two different Internet poker sites. He's sitting in at four tables, biding his time, waiting for the big strike.

"Right now there's 57,000 people playing on Party Poker and 35,000 people playing on Poker Stars,'' he said, logging off for a phone interview. "It's huge. When online poker first started it was mostly computer guys who didn't know how to play poker because all the poker guys didn't know how to use computers. You'd always see the same players over and over and over again. Now it's crazy.''

Now it's a billion-dollar-a-year empire with dozens of 24-hour-a-day sites available to anyone with a credit card and a mouse.

"I've played lawyers and all kinds of people who were playing while they were at work,'' said Zak, adding when so many people are involved, not all of them can be good.

"If you were a break-even player at the tables, it's a gold mine online. I play low limit online and it's pretty easy money.''

It's become such a convenient and profitable venture that he devotes most of his playing time to the Net. He can change tables, change limits, walk away and come back without ever leaving the house.

"With online poker all you have to do is turn on your computer and there's a game,'' said Zak. "And the nice thing about it is I don't have to subject myself to smokers.''

But now, because of their experience on the Internet, rookies who walk into live tournaments or money games for the first time aren't always pigeons.

"There are a lot of new players 25 and under and they're really educated,'' said Koluk. "There's no longer the fish walking in who has no idea what game he's playing. They know the odds now. You have to be careful against them.''

But regardless of how much experience they've gained online, nothing can prepare them for their first time at a green felt table.

"It's a totally different ball game sitting across the table from somebody,'' said Hewines. "No matter how much education you get, you can't beat the experience of playing other people. You can understand the outs and the draws and the value of hands, but playing against other players, that's where psychology and emotion are involved.''

The tournaments might be too full to get a seat and with so many new players in the mix there are plenty of loose cannons out there - playing hands they shouldn't, chasing hands they shouldn't, and getting lucky to win pots they shouldn't.

But you won't find a single veteran complaining.

"I think it's a blessing,'' said Ashmore, who's earned over $20,000 on the Canadian Poker Tour this winter. "In 2002, I won $14,000 for the Canadian championship. Two years later first place was $42,000. That's what the popularity means. There are more people in the tournaments, but when you do cash, it's a lot higher.''

The Canadian Poker Tour, which has paid out $1 million in prize money so far this year, held the highest buy-in tournament in Canada last month in Calgary - $1,000 a seat - and it sold out.

First prize was $60,000.

When a reporter pulled up a seat at the Baccarat tourney not a single one of the real players rolled their eyes. And when I walked out a few hours later - about $60 lighter - it was all handshakes and invitations to come back next weekend.

"Ninety-nine per cent of very good poker players will encourage a new player and want to help out,'' said Koluk. "Because the more people you have in the game, the more money you make.''

Ashmore has played in six World Series events and been across the table from the likes of Phil Helmuth and Amarillo Slim, but says the most important piece of advice he could ever give a new player isn't about odds or strategy - it's that holdem should be an affordable pastime, not a personal demon.

"I would advise young players that as attractive and popular as poker is right now, let it be a hobby, and concentrate on an education and a career,'' said Ashmore, who made his name in the oil-field business long before he did it in cards.

"There are too many young lives ruined by pursuing the wild dream of becoming a Chris Moneymaker. Then all of a sudden they're 35 years old and have no education, nothing to fall back on and they're broke.

"That's why I prefer tournament play. You know what your outlay is in a tournament. If it's a $100 buy in, that's the most you're going to lose, $100. But in a live money game you could lose $600 or $700.''

In a heartbeat.

"You have to be aware of the dangers of addiction,'' said Ashmore. "If all you're doing is gambling, you have no balance in your life. If you have time for poker, time for family, time for friends, time for your career, fine. But if you find you don't have that balance in your life, then you'd better stop and take a look.''

Koluk, who only plays on weekends, when he's off work, has never seen poker as anything but a game.

"You just have to play it for the enjoyment,'' he said. "The minute you think of it as a business you either have to be really, really good or you have to have a very big bankroll to start with. That's because you don't just say I'm going to be a professional poker player. I don't know any poker players who haven't lost money.''