Poker News

Imagine the sound of cards slapping together as they are shuffled. The chips are stacked in front of each player waiting to be played. The cards are dealt and the eyes dart down, merely flipping the cards to briefly see the hand. “I’m in,” everyone chimes as they each place their bet in the center.

The game is Texas Hold ‘em—one of the more commonly played versions of poker. It is a game which has been around for a long time but has only slowly become a trend, especially among college students.

While it’s difficult to find the exact starting point of this trend, the attention the game has drawn from the media through such shows as “The World Series of Poker” and Bravo’s “Celebrity Poker Showdown,” which gives celebrities money to play with (winnings ultimately go to charity) and alcoholic beverages of their choice, have added interest and energy to the growing trend.

“NewsRadio” alum Dave Foley commentates along with Phil Gordon, poker expert, from inside the “Loser’s Lounge” where each celebrity goes after they lose. Each season cumulates with a showdown of the best from each episode—“Saturday Night Live’s Seth Myers and Maura Tierney from “ER” have been among the ultimate winners.

Soon after the show became popular, stores began carrying all the necessities for anyone to host their own poker night. Most common was the all-in-one box that gives people the green felt, deck of cards, chips and instructions. This kit could be found at stores from Big Lots! to Borders, and has made a great holiday present for many people. A slew of books were published along with the kit, all dealing with the topic of poker, from learning different versions of poker strategies to mastering the Zen of poker playing.

The trend has taken college campuses by storm. The occasional poker game has turned into a weekly or sometimes nightly, event. In Bellarmine Hall there is a group that meets Thursday nights around 8 p.m. and plays into the early hours of the morning. There is another group of students who play in Xavier’s lobby every night and they have been observed playing until three in the morning.

The university has also cashed in on the trend. The Student Events and Activities Council (SEAC) sponsored two tournaments in the last year and plans on having a third in the spring. The most recent tournament was this past December in which there was a fairly large turn out of approximately 80 people. The original cut-off had been 70, but so many students wanted to play that they had to start a waiting list.

“There is no buy-in (i.e. it is a free game, but you can still win money). Players are all given a bag of chips, totaling the same amount upon signing in at the beginning of the tournament,” explained Late Night Co-Chair Gina Corsiglia, sophomore non-profit major. “There are betting blinds that go up every 20 minutes (the blind system forces players to bet a certain amount during the ante thus moving the game along faster), and people have to go all in to lose. We have 10 round tables with seven people at each table. Every table plays until there are three people left and then the three people move to other tables. This continues until there are eight people left; then that group moves to the “winners” table where they play until there is one winner,”

“There is one grand prize of $200, but we let the last three players decide whether or not to split the pot three ways or have one winner. Typically everyone agrees to split the pot, in which case first place receives $125, second gets $50 and third gets $25,” Corsiglia continued.

The winner of the most recent tournament, Josh Lipps, senior accounting major, is an avid poker player.

“I enjoy playing poker because, in my opinion, it is one of the only ways to gamble and have control over whether you win or lose. There is a lot of luck involved in winning a tournament, but at the same time you can decide when to play and when to sit out,” he explained. If you don’t like your cards you can throw them away, or you can bluff and try to make your opponents think you have great cards when you don’t. Poker is just an exciting game to me.”

Lipps participated in the tournament to prove to himself that he could make it farther than he did in the tournament in the spring.

“It was pretty cool to win the SEAC tournament because it was the first tournament I have ever won, besides ones with friends,” said Lipps. “It made me want to go out and play a lot more tournament poker, which I did over Christmas break. Then I found out that I have a lot of work to do if I want to be a real good tournament player.”

For those students who want to participate in a tournament but do not have the time to sit down and play all at once there is an online college poker championship at www.collegepokerchampionship.comsponsored by the Royal Vegas Casino. As long as a person is enrolled in an institute of higher education, he or she can participate. The tournament runs over an eight-month time span and awards scholarships to each week’s winners. The top 20 percent of the players in the playoffs will get to compete in the final round at the end of May. Anyone who places between 1st and 80th place will receive some amount of scholarship money. Also, first through tenth place gets to designate which charities should receive $10,000.

Only time will tell whether poker will continue to grow and become America’s new favorite pastime or if it will sizzle out like the way of pogs and rollerblading.