TEXAS HOLDEM ONLINE POKER

Late at night in a hidden-away lounge deep within a University of Washington dormitory, a handful of students sit around a large, blanket-covered ottoman -- a makeshift poker table. They're settling in for a few hours of Texas Holdem.

"What do you think, guys -- $5 or $10 buy-in?" asks Wyatt Albertson, 20, the dealer.

The 20-year-old business major's question is met with shrugs and furtive glances. Nobody says a word. It's against the rules to play for money in the dorms, and a visitor is in the room.

"OK, we'll decide later," Albertson says, quickly catching the drift, before flicking out the first cards of the evening.

Poker isn't the domain of cigar-chomping middle-aged men any longer. The game that started in the saloons of the Old West is sweeping college campuses, capturing the imagination of young men and women. At the UW and other state colleges, games are often slapped together on the fly -- even all-night tournaments.

"At the beginning of the year, it was so hard to find people to play," said Justin Hammond, 19, a UW freshman. "Now, there are 40 people I can call to see if they want to play."

For these twentysomething players, it's all about the thrill of laying down bets, seeing through your opponents' bluffs, and not allowing your own emotions to betray you.

"It's a brilliantly thought-out game. It's not based on just plain luck. It's more like psychological warfare," said Sohrab Ahmari, 20, a UW philosophy major who plays regularly.

Nobody's getting rich on campus: Winners often walk away with between $30 and $100. Many students say they also play online -- in their dorm rooms or on the computers in the university library.

Albertson is one of them.

"There are some big payouts online, and you never have to leave your room," he said. "Plus, the players seem a lot worse."

It's a bit of a dare -- since it's illegal to place bets over the Internet in Washington. But Albertson, who says he plays Texas Holdem about 20 hours a week, likes it best when the stakes are high.

"The more money that's at risk the more competitive it gets -- and once you throw people off their game, that's when you can take a lot of their chips," he said.

Texas Holdem is a national phenomenon, with professional gamblers and celebrities playing the game on national television. That's how some college students say they caught the bug.

They recall with awe that moment in 2003 when Chris Moneymaker, an apt-named accountant often characterized as an "average Joe," entered the World Series of Poker online with $40 and wound up winning $2.5 million.

"It makes you see that anybody can do it," said Jason Verges, a 27-year-old Edmonds Community College student who plays poker with friends, his father and plenty of strangers. He likes the action at local casinos and occasionally journeys to Las Vegas.

"I love the rush of it," he said.

He admits to losing up to $500 in a single night in Vegas. "But you stay the night and win it back and dinner, too."

Sitting at a table with a pair of aces and hiding your excitement so other players will keep betting, well ... Students say pulse-quickening moments like that make them want to play more. "It gets your adrenaline going," Hammond said. "The betting. The rush of going all in."

Pushing all your chips into the center of the table, whether you're holding a decent hand or not, can be a bold strategic move that forces everyone else to bail out, he said. But more often than not, it's a last-ditch attempt to get your money back.

Not much is known about gambling by college students because there's been little national research on the subject until a few years ago.

At the UW, recent surveys of 2,500 students found that 62 percent had played poker at least once, with 4 percent playing at least once a week. Only 2 percent to 3 percent reported gambling online regularly.

Behavioral science researcher Mary Larimer and other UW faculty are working with more than $300,000 in federal grants to develop effective ways of talking with students about the downside of gambling. College students are sometimes reckless and often on shaky financial footing, making them twice as prone to gambling-related problems as the general population, research shows.

Across the country, about 7 percent to 12 percent of student gamblers are either hooked on the games or suffering from related financial difficulties, disrupted studies and family arguments, said Clayton Neighbors, a researcher who works with Larimer.

Because there's no system for reporting gambling problems at the UW and most college campuses, there's no way to tell the effect of poker obsession on students' ability to remain in school and keep up their grades.

A 2002 study in the Journal of Gambling Studies concluded that the reason college students gamble is simple: They want to make money.

That's one of the reasons UW sophomore Thomas Grout plays. He claims to have walked out of a casino poker game with $1,200 in his pocket.

It wasn't a flush, a full house or a pair of aces that won the pot. It was an icy-cool bluff. The hand, Grout said, was "garbage."

"They think it's glamorous," said Stuart Battersby, manager of Kenmore Lanes Casino, where many college students play. "Young guys being young guys, there's a lot of testosterone in it. They're just modern-day gunslingers."

TEXAS HOLDEM AND BETTING

The poker game Texas Holdem starts with each player being dealt two cards. Initial bets are made based on the strength of those cards.

Betting can be limited to a specific amount for each round. In a "no-limit" game, players bet as much as they want during any round. Players win by making the best hand (like a regular poker game) based on their first two cards and those put down by the dealer.

After the first cards are dealt, the dealer lays down three cards -- "the flop" -- face up. These are called "community cards." All players can use them.

Once they size up their hands and their opponents, players bet again. Then the dealer lays down "the turn" -- one card. That triggers more betting.

The final card is called "the river." The last round of betting follows. If you win because of this card, you've "sucked out."

If your opponents lose their cool because you've taken their cash, they've gone on "tilt."

The key to the game, players say, is learning how to bluff while simultaneously deducing the caliber of opponents' hands based on looks, actions and words.