Sporting News, The: You don't have to know when to hold 'em

There are many things about me, I suppose, that could classify me as a freak. My stalkerlike devotion to Tom Cruise, my tendency to listen to the same CDs over and over and over, my addiction to certain Internet blogs (thanks a lot, Zach Braff).

Near the top of the list has to be my obsession with Celebrity Poker Showdown on Bravo. Up front, you need to know two things about me. First, I have never, ever played poker. I went to Vegas a few years ago and was too much of a wuss to play anything more than nickel slots. Nickel slots. In Vegas. I won $5 in nickels, and let me tell you, never was a sweeter jackpot won. Those babies filled up my entire plastic cup.

The second, more embarrassing, fact is that I actually have no clue how poker is played. At all. Zero. Nada. At first, I thought poker was the game where you tried to get up to 21 without going over, and then I realized that was blackjack. And then I thought, OK, it's the game where you try to get rid of all your cards before everyone else. But then I remembered that was Uno.

From my sofa, over the course of 147 boxes of Crunch 'n Munch, I've pieced together a couple of things about the game of poker. I'm pretty sure the high cards (the queens and kings and aces, oh my) are good. And pairs. Basically, anything that can win you points in Yahtzee--a three of a kind, a straight--is reason to smile (or not, since you're supposed to be as stone-faced as one of those guards outside the queen's palace).

I've discovered a few other things. Like, for example, the really cool poker players have nicknames. How great is that? As far as I'm concerned, that's reason enough to play. The last nickname I got ("Trasha") was from my brothers 20 years ago and made me cry. I'm due for a cool nickname.

And then there's strategy, which should not he confused with actually knowing how to play the game. I watched an episode recently in which poker novice Wanda Sykes practically put on a clinic when it came to intimidating her more experienced competition. She sang "Achy Breaky Heart" to Travis Tritt. She chewed out Jerome Bettis: "Why are you looking at my cards?" (Jerome: "I'm not thinking about your cards." Wanda: "Well, it was my cards or my breasts. You were looking at something.") And she flipped off the card cam. The card cam!

I was surfing through channels one night last week, and neither ESPN nor ESPN2 was showing sports. On ESPN2 was some dance-off between packs of giddy, teenaged girls, and on ESPN ... poker. Like it or not, poker is America's new favorite pastime. It's become the hottest craze since Bennifer. (By the way: Ben Affleck--great poker player. Or so they say.) I mean, when you think about it, it makes sense--what's more American than gambling away your hard-earned cash?

Even for someone like me, on whom the nuances of poker are utterly lost, there is a magnetic appeal. You know what it's like to watch movies that are supposed to be suspenseful, but you always manage to figure out the ending halfway through? That never happens when you're watching poker. It's like the world's most foolproof thriller. Even if you get that a king and an ace are better than a 7 and a 9 (I don't even know if that's true, but for argument's sake), you can't predict human behavior. You can't know that the Bus would fold something like 97 better hands because he was tricked into thinking he had worse cards.

When it comes down to it, that's probably what I like best about poker--the mind games. Bite your lip, widen your eyes, whatever. The simplest movement will completely screw with your opponent's psyche. If that's not a fun time, I don't know what is.

So I don't know the rules of poker. Big deal. Any girl knows how to play a good mind game. Now, all I need is a cool nickname. Is Bennifer still taken?