TEXAS HOLDEM ONLINE POKER

Not bad for a guy who only took up the game last Thanksgiving.

On Sunday, Drehobl, 49, begins play in the finals of the World Series of Poker at Binion's Horseshoe Casino in the Nevada city. The $10,000 entry fee was no problem, not after he won the huge pot at an earlier WSOP tournament at Binion's on April 28.

``I'm still a novice. I don't pretend to be anything different,'' Drehobl said in a telephone interview Wednesday from Las Vegas. ``To win a tournament like that, you've got to be sort of lucky.''

It helped that Drehobl felt he had little to lose when he faced some of the best Texas Holdem players in the world. ``I took a lot more chances than they would,'' Drehobl said. ``Why risk all their chips on one hand when they can grind it out?''

His winning game is to be shown June 22 on ESPN, and the finals of the World Series of Poker will be televised over and over for the next year.

Televised poker has become hugely popular. In addition to ESPN, the Travel Channel offers ``World Poker Tour'' and Bravo has ``Celebrity Poker Showdown.''

When not making like Amarillo Slim, Drehobl operates a corporate aircraft maintenance service out of his home.

Drehobl had never played cards much, but became hooked on Texas Holdem poker while playing with his wife's family and watching televised tournaments last year. Around Thanksgiving, he taught himself to play Texas Holdem, a wildly popular game in which each player is dealt two personal cards and then five community cards are turned up on the table.

It was in that game that his pair of kings beat an opponent's ace and six, winning a final pot of more than $1 million. He got to keep 35 percent, with much of the rest distributed among the top 30 finishers.

The championships of the World Series of Poker run from Saturday through next Friday at Binion's. Each Texas Holdem player begins with $10,000 in chips, and quits when that money's gone.

Drehobl moved to Spokane after marrying wife Ann four years ago.

He had few hopes of a major score when he wandered down to Binion's during a Las Vegas vacation last month and joined a poker game in which each player put up $200. He won, getting $2,000 in chips he used to buy himself into a WSOP event.

He finished 40th in that tournament, getting $4,400. He used that money to buy into another WSOP preliminary, and, after 26 straight hours of play, won the big pot.