 "Photo: Veronica Scheer")
On an average Friday night, Murtaza Cheema, a business freshman, sits down at a round table in the San Jacinto Residence Hall study lounge to play poker with friends until the sun comes up.
"Movies have a built-in story that you can't change. When you're gambling, the game depends on the person," Cheema said. "I can win with a good hand, or I can win by bluffing. Why sit through a movie when you can get it all - comedy, drama, action and, in some cases, crying - when someone loses all their money?"
Cheema is one of the many UT students who occupy many evenings trying to win money rather than spending it. They say investing $10 in a poker game, with the chance of winning more cash, is better than forking over money to get into a club on Sixth Street.
There are numerous kinds of poker, from Five Card Draw and Seven Card Stud to Omaha Hi-Lo. But the most common game among students is Texas Hold'em. According to Poker-Mag, an online publication that caters to poker fans, Texas Hold'em is the most popular poker game in the world.
The game includes four rounds of betting. To begin, players must buy in by putting money down, or "buying" the chips to play. The buy in amount varies depending on the minimum set by the players.
"Usually, the buy in to play is $10, and we mostly play with five to 10 people," said Robert Brooks, an engineering freshman. "The most I've won was $40, but there were times when I lost everything."
The dealer gives each player two cards, called pocket cards. They place their first bets, and the dealer lays three cards, called community cards, face up on the table. The players make bets based on these cards and can choose to fold, raise or call the bets. After the first round, another community card is turned up and added after each round. Once the final community card is played, everyone places their last bets and each remaining player reveals their pocket cards. The one with the best hand claims the pot. Five-card poker hands are determined by using the best five out of the seven cards (two pocket cards plus the five community cards on the table).
Hold'em's popularity began in the late 1990s, when it became the official game of the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas at Binion's Horseshoe Casino. Soon after, Hold'em became the favorite poker game at Las Vegas casinos, according to Bravo TV's Celebrity Poker Showdown Web site. The rise of this trend attracted the media, and now World Poker Championships, as well as celebrity poker tournaments, which appear on television channels such as ESPN, ESPN2, Travel Channel and Bravo TV. Despite all the attention, a lot of students say the 1998 movie "Rounders," starring Matt Damon and Edward Norton, turned them onto the game.
Internet sites such as PlanetPoker.com, 888-poker.com and Pokerroom.com allow gamers to play online. Gaming Web sites let players create accounts attached to their credit cards, which they can use to buy in or bet.
The game's popularity among college students has also spawned sites such as CollegePokerChampionship.com, which offers winners a $70,000 scholarship as well as $10,000 in donations to charities or university clubs.
Gambling is extremely popular among dorm residents, and some say it can cause problems when players set their games up in dorm study lounges.
"People who want to do homework in a quiet place should have priority over those that are only using the study lounge to play poker," said Sheree Chen, a pre-pharmacy sophomore. "When I need to study for a test, and they're hogging up all the space, it can be really annoying."
The University's rules forbid gambling in dorms and other public areas. Doug Gerrard, associate director of the Division of Housing and Food Services, said students are allowed to play cards but not to bet for money.
"When there's money involved, it's gambling, and it's a violation of state law. It is covered by institutional policy. There is no set penalization when students are caught gambling; it really depends on the circumstances. If it becomes serious, we'd do an investigation, and there could be a possible referral to the dean's office," Gerrard said.
But students continue to find ways around the dorm rules.
"Our RA says we can play cards, but we can't play for money," Brooks said. "In a casino, the casino gets a certain percentage of each pot. As long as no one acts as the casino or house, it's OK, and it will satisfy the players and the RA."
