Rounders for real

"You know what always cheers me up?"

"Rolled up aces over kings. Check-raising stupid tourists and taking huge pots off of them. Playing all-night high-limit Hold'em at the Taj, 'where the sand turns to gold.' Stacks and towers of checks I can't even see over." -- "Rounders"

This is the life of professional poker players: touring casinos worldwide, playing in tournaments with thousands of dollars at stake while calculating the odds of the strength of their hands -- all without breaking a sweat.

At least, that's what the people at the Travel Channel would have you believe. The second season of "World Poker Tour" premieres tonight, when the series opens at the Borgata Poker Open in Atlantic City.

The latest televised sporting trend is not NASCAR or Arena Football, but No-Limit Texas Hold'em. Even though the World Series of Poker has been televised on ESPN for many years, the game has become the hot craze in the past year since the premiere of "WPT." Hardly a night goes by when there isn't one card game going on around campus. Whether the stakes are nickel or dollar chips is irrelevant: no one can resist the anticipation of what will come from the shuffle of the deck.

The Bravo network tried to cash in on the trend with its throwback series, "Celebrity Poker Showdown." Yet the show was never really about good card playing but more about washed up celebrities. "World Poker Tour," however, is the real thing. For two months, follow host Shana Hiatt and commentators Mike Sexton and Vincent Van Patten around the globe, to locations such as Paris, Aruba, and even the exotic Foxwoods, as they present the world's greatest poker players.

Each week, "World Poker Tour" focuses on the winner's table of that episode's tournament. Amateur and professional players alike converge on the tables with pitch black sunglasses and their own assortment of visors and lucky charms. The riveting action of a normal poker table is magnified exponentially considering the massive stacks the players are fooling around with are worth tens of thousands of dollars, not your regular fifty-cent/dollar stakes.

For those unfamiliar with the game at hand, the commentators do a laudable job at explaining its workings in addition to pop-up graphics explaining poker lingo. By the conclusion of just one episode, you'll be able to discuss what it's like to be "on the button" when facing the "river" and not catching your "inside straight draw." Poker will no longer seem like a ridiculous waste of a gambling addict's money; instead it will be revealed as a great game of skill and acting.

The televised poker revolution was largely enabled by the introduction of tiny Bond-esque cameras that spy on each player's cards. With that information, Sexton and Van Patten can provide the odds of possible hands and read the player's bluffs or slow-plays. These two are an astonishing resource, giving tips on how to play poker like the real sharks.

Travel Channel does an especially exceptional job of producing the World Poker Tour. By displaying graphics showing each player's hands, his odds of winning the pot, and the amount of many he's thrown into the middle, each television viewer knows more about the turn of each card than each competitor at the table. The network knows its audience well too - it cuts to a commercial break right before the dealer flips over the climactic card.

If there's a negative about "World Poker Tour," it would be the one aspect the show can't control. Come 9:55 p.m., you know the program is about to end and a winner is about to be declared. You know who has the majority of the chips, and any drama from the eventual "all-in" raise is lost because you'll know that the poorer player cannot possibly win.

Alas, not everything can be perfect in poker.

Just look to your housemate who's lost $35 in poker in the last week. The game is an addiction, not to mention the show.