Wistful winner

A PU senior, fresh from his big poker payoff, expresses concern about gambling on campus.

By: Robert M. Bernstein
   Winning $700,000 playing poker in the Mexican Riviera would make most Princeton students ecstatic.
   Princeton University senior Mathew Cherackal, however, acknowledges his good fortune and accepts his winnings with a grain of salt.
   Some students have hailed the molecular biology concentrator as a hero, but Mr. Cherackal, 22, humbly underplays his third-place finish in the world’s largest Limit Texas Hold’em tournament, co-sponsored by the World Poker Tour.
   The Connecticut native competed with 734 other poker players for a week last month aboard the luxury cruise ship M.S. Oosterdam, often playing five hours of poker a day. All of his expenses, including the $10,200 buy-in entry fee, were covered after Mr. Cherackal won preliminary satellite tournaments at partypoker.com, an online casino that claims to offer players "a safe, secure and friendly environment to play poker."
   The poker Web site, where more than 250,000 online players compete daily, drew national attention last month when The New York Times ran a front page story about online poker mania at Princeton University and campuses across the country.
   "The poker craze worries me — way too many Princeton students play too much poker," said Mr. Cherackal. "It’s such a waste to spend your time at a school like this playing all the time."
   At least one student has asked to remove his private computer from the university network to eliminate the temptation to gamble online, according to Hilary Herbold, associate dean of undergraduate students.
   Only introduced to the game the summer after his junior year in college, Mr. Cherackal attributes "being very good at something" as the primary factor that initially attracted him to Texas Hold’em, the popular form of poker. Money was important, he said, but only a secondary factor.
   "It came easy to me," he said, "so I gave it a shot and decided to play online."
   By the fall of senior year, Mr. Cherackal was playing competitive poker online. "In the beginning, I never had a losing week," he said. "It became clear that I could make six figures easily."
   Within a few months, he found himself dedicating increasingly more time playing the game online. His grades were slipping, and he wasn’t as happy as he had been as an underclassman, so at the suggestion of his parents, Mr. Cherackal took a leave from Princeton. "I realized I was wasting my time playing poker, so a year off made sense," he said.
   The university has no official policy regarding poker playing on campus, but Ms. Herbold says the university is working to address the issue.
   "Gambling is a concern to us primarily as it negatively affects our students," she said. "It’s something we take seriously, as we do any kind of addictive or compulsive behavior. We’re here more to help students than to discipline them," she added.
   "As it becomes increasingly addictive, the costs increase and the rewards diminish," Ms. Herbold said. "We need to educate students and raise their awareness that addiction is a real danger."
   Junior Mark Price of St. Louis said he would like to see a chapter of Gamblers Anonymous at Princeton. A recovering addict himself, Mr. Price believes the university should take a proactive role in helping students fight addiction.
   "Steps should be made to encourage students to attend such meetings," he said. "It takes a big loss — often a loss of friends and not just money — to realize you are addicted."
   Mr. Price estimates that 80 percent of Princeton students who play competitive poker online could be considered addicts, according to Gamblers Anonymous criteria.
   "I still consider myself an addict," he said. "I always have the urge to gamble. I saw what poker did to my friends, and its awful effects have really hit home for me."
   The ease and anonymity of online poker allows students to play from 10 at night until 10 in the morning, several days a week, Mr. Price said.
   "Some students play online 24/7, but you just never see them," he said. "They fail out of school, and they don’t do any extracurriculars."
   Students involved in competitive playing should watch how much time they devote to the game so that they can enjoy their time at Princeton, advises Mr. Cherackal.
   "Poker is something apathetic people tend to find," he noted.
   Because he sees compulsive poker playing at Princeton as distinct from the type of gambling where a person spends days in a casino in front of a slot machine, Mt. Cherackal feels general counseling would be more helpful to students than a Gamblers Anonymous chapter.
   A compulsive gambler, like someone who bets $200 on black in roulette and spins the wheel, chases a high, he says, "whereas, when you play poker properly, you have to be patient and methodical."
   Mr. Price feels fortunate to have identified his problem when he did. Most students involved in compulsive playing do not admit they have a problem.
   Even Mr. Cherackal, whose father offered him $6,000 not to go on the cruise, says, "I don’t pat myself on the back playing all this poker." He plans on saving most of his newly won fortune and possibly using it to pay for medical school. He says he will invest only a small amount in future poker playing.
   "Eventually, I hope to do something meaningful with my life," he admits wistfully. "I want to find something I really love — poker isn’t it."