Krieger Advises Students to Just Enjoy the Game
A student at MSU won first prize in an online poker tournament over
Christmas break, and the prize was a chance of a lifetime. Wesley
Wilburn, a senior and anthropology major, won an all expense paid trip
to play poker in the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.
Poker is the game of everyone, and thus it has grown exponentially in
popularity in the last five years. Anyone can play it, a couch potato or
an iron hard athlete, and with its exposure on ever more sports channels
and television shows, poker has taken on a glamour all its own. Poker is
growing especially popular among college students and their age groups,
and Wilburn is evidence of that.
“It’s the biggest tournament in the world, and you get to play against
the best players in the world. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do,”
he said, about his win. Wilburn is keeping his head on his shoulders
about taking up poker as a career, though, “It would take me winning a
lot of money to take up poker full time.”
Poker expert Lou Krieger has given online gambling credit as one of the
biggest factors in the skyrocketing stock of the game. Krieger, a
professional player and the author of several books, including Poker for
Dummies and The Poker Player’s Bible, advises young players like Wilburn
to play as well as they can, but keep in mind that they also have to be
inordinately lucky as well, a factor that is beyond anyone’s control.
Krieger also attributes the changing perception of poker, from a game of
middle aged man to the newest glamour game, to the use of the lipstick
camera, which shows the cards in each player’s hand and has
revolutionized televised poker events. Krieger says that before the
lipstick camera, watching televised poker was boring because you
couldn’t see the hands of the players. He says that the use of the
camera has turned poker into a real spectator sport.
For young players like Wilburn, Krieger credits their wins but cautions
them not to get too carried away. “Ultimately, only one person will win,
so my advice is to just enjoy the process as much as possible.”
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