Canadian looks to strike it rich at Poker World Series

Steve Csermak is hoping to turn $9 into $7.5-million (U.S). The 38-year-old from Grimsby, Ont., is in Las Vegas for the World Series of Poker. Csermak is in the elite Texas Hold ?Em world championship event.

The buy-in is $10,000 but Csermak won his online tournament at bowmans.com and the Internet betting outfit put up his buy-in and gave him $2,500 in expenses.

Not bad for an $9 entry fee.

I'm feeling pretty darn good about that,? Csermak said Wednesday from Sin City. ?Pretty exciting. My $9, I'm looking for a good return on investment on that one.?

The main event actually starts Thursday but there are so many entries that the first round stretches over three days and Csermak doesn't get going until Saturday. There were more than 5,000 competitors as of Wednesday afternoon, up from 2,576 last year. Organizers plan to cap the field at 6,600.

That makes for a heck of a prize pool considering the steep entry fee.

?Whoever wins this event is considered the world poker champion,? Csermak said. ?And the (first) prize is estimated to be $8-million. It's crazy.?

Organizers say top prize will be $7.5-million. But that's plenty crazy enough.

Csermak's guess is that the top 600 will at least earn back their entry fee.

?It's an amazing opportunity and it's just a lot of fun,? said Csermak, who sounded like he still pinching himself.

Csermak says he has been playing cards ?as soon as I was old enough to hold them.? He played with his parents, grandmother and friends but tried his hand at playing online poker less than a year ago.

A project manager at a high tech company, he has done well. But he restricts himself to tournament play, because all you can lose is an entry fee.

?It doesn't matter how caught up you get in the emotion,? he explained. ?You're not reaching into your pocket and throwing more cash out than you intended to. You pay your $5, $10, $20 entry fee and you can throw all your chips in at one bad move, but you know you're only losing that one entry fee.?

He likes Texas Hold ?Em because he enjoys the combination of psychology, card sense and memory the game requires.

?They all help, but you also need some luck too,? he allows.

Csermak won the first level of the Bowmans' qualifying series back in May. He then won the second level and capped it off by winning the online final May 29.

That happened to be his wife's birthday, so he was forced to skip the family festivities.

?Needless to say people were not all that thrilled,? he said. ?But she understood the magnitude of the event luckily and she said ?Well, all I can say is you better win.' ?About four hours later, I drove up to meet them. They were all having desert. And I came in the house yelling and screaming. And they all thought I was joking to get out of trouble. But once that they found out I was telling the truth, all was forgiven.?

There will be about 2,000 people competing each of the first three days, spread over some 200 tables.

The 2,000 will be reduced to about 600 by the end of the day. Just surviving that long will take about 10 to 11 hours play.

The 1,800 or so survivors will then play down, until only one table of nine people is left on the ninth day.

Csermak could be playing 10 to 11 hours a day for a week. Or he could be gone in half an hour.

In the meantime, he's being ?ramping up the time on the game just to stay sharp.?

But he's never played the game in person. Only on the Internet. So he will be in uncharted waters.

He's still working on his game-day face.

Sunglasses are probably in the plans, to help avoid giving anything away. And he has a shirt picked out ? with a Bowmans logo as his sponsor.

?(I'm) very nervous. But I'm having a great time.?

News Added: 07 July, 2005

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