The Spanish Prisoner (PG) to rent

YOU THOUGHT Hold'em was a simple game, didn't you? Just two cards in the hole and five in common on the flop. Could hardly be easier, could it?

ANYONE WHO thinks gambling offers an easy way of life is seriously mistaken. Just how badly mistaken can be seen in a new television programe entitled Winners, which shows a trio of the best poker players in the country in action: David Mosely, Dave "Devil Fish" Ullyott and Surinder Singh.

WHEN THE Tote jackpot, worth nearly pounds 700,000, was held over last week from the Cheltenham Festival to Fakenham on Friday, a nation's punters went collectively crazy.

I HONESTLY don't think that I have owned a worst car. For me, the motor car is a fabulous expression of freedom. It gets you precisely where you want to go, which isn't as stupid a statement as it may sound. Purely as a business tool, I have found them invaluable as a mobile office. That is why my cars always look so untidy inside, whether they have been Minis or Bentleys.

There was nothing Stu Ungar didn't know about playing no-limit poker. Unfortunately he knew nothing about anything else.

STU UNGAR, three times World Poker Champion in Las Vegas, was regarded as the best no-limit player on the professional circuit. He was found dead last Sunday in a motel room on the Las Vegas Strip, with $800 in his pocket.

Rounders (15) Ronin (15) The Eel (18) Les Miserables (12) Dead Man's Curve (18) The Fountainhead (PG)

As the film 'Rounders' opens, Daniel Rosenthal pays tribute to poker's tense role in 100 years of movie-making

ACES! DON'TCHA love 'em? Here are two examples from a low-level game of Hold 'em, blinds pounds 1, pounds 1, pounds 2, which I encountered recently.

INSIDE EVERY poker player a monologue is going on, beneath the surface of the game. It's a kind of inner reflection on your state of play - the mistakes you made, how you feel about the other players and how they are doing, the equation of getting back to even or hanging on to some notional figure of profit - elusive, personal things that are not really related to the cards and hands as such.

Poker tournaments seem to be the dominant feature of the contemporary game and the way of the future. According to one estimate, there are probably 30,000 small-stakes poker tournaments held across America in a year. Entry is often as low as the $10-$25 range, as distinct from the thousands of dollars required in the World Series. In Britain too, tournaments are increasingly popular, with buy-ins of pounds 10-pounds 20 or so (and no casino charge to pay). The point of these events is that you can win a prize of several hundred for a very small outlay.

SOME pretty colourful characters normally take part in the annual world poker championships here, but they do not, as a rule, attract yearning teenage girls, let alone 20 television crews. So other players were unaccustomed to the fuss when they were joined last week by Matt Damon, high-school heart-throb, Oscar winner and star of the recent movie Good Will Hunting.

Lowball, the version of seven card stud when the best possible hand is A-2-3-4-6 off-suit, is a tricky game. Someone once told me it was merely 2 per cent skill and 98 per cent luck. I think it is more complicated than most players realise. It certainly can be very expensive. Here is a case in point.