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Ed Melo, a first-year civil engineering student, plays poker with friends at Sunset Village.

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Regular poker games like this one have sprouted up all around the UCLA campus and Westwood.

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(Right to left) Ron Guzman and Abhay Chrungoo, computer science graduate students, play poker alm

There’s no greater exhilaration in No-Limit Texas Hold ’em than hearing a poker player declare, “All in.”

Even when the fateful words are uttered by a dirt-poor college student in sweatpants, playing in a game where “no limit” hardly amounts to a triple-digit pot, “all in” is still “all in.”

From red, white and blue poker chips to Hold ’em lingo like flop, turn, river and kicker, the sights and sounds of the increasingly popular poker game are becoming ubiquitous throughout the dorms and apartments around campus. Lately, it seems a poker game can break out on any given night. Tonight Delta Delta Delta sorority is hosting a Texas Hold ’em tournament at the Student Activities Center to benefit UCLA’s Children’s Oncology Ward, a telltale sign of the game’s mainstream crossover.

“We chose Texas Hold ’em because it’s become very popular, and it isn’t limited to students with Greek affiliation. It’s something every student can participate in since it’s so popular,” said third-year sociology student and Tri Delta chapter president Katy Norlander. “A lot of us have learned the rules of the game and how to deal from the girls who play with their boyfriends, so we’re ready to go.”

In No-Limit Texas Hold ’em, each player tries to form the best poker hand from any combination of two down (hole or pocket) cards and the five community cards turned face up – three coming at once (the flop), followed by the turn (fourth street) and the river (fifth street). Any player can go all in with his chips at any time.

“It’s a rush,” said James An, a fourth-year sociology student. “The fact that it’s no-limit and you can make the pot as high as you want is really exciting.”

An and his roommates hold a poker night at their Westholme apartment every Thursday, and they’re not alone; poker nights are sprouting up almost anywhere there’s a deck of cards and some poker chips. They might soon rival televised sporting events as the ultimate apartment activity for male college students.

“Don’t you have to study tonight?” An asked a fellow player as he dealt out the cards during the latest poker outing.

“I think I do,” said alumnus Johnny Chang, who’s not to be confused with poker legend Johnny Chan, immortalized as the perfect player in 1998’s “Rounders,” a film that some players crammed in An’s apartment credited as their first exposure to Texas Hold ’em.

In 1987 and 1988, Chan won the World Series of Poker, played annually at Binion’s Horseshoe Casino in Las Vegas. ESPN had been broadcasting the tournament’s final table for over a decade with less-than-modest success.

But in March 2003, when the Travel Channel’s “World Poker Tour” started using tiny cameras on the table to show the players’ hole cards, televised poker matches became more interactive and thrilling for TV audiences. With color commentators dispensing sage advice and pop-up graphics showing the players’ odds, the innovative program continues to be the network’s biggest ratings winner.

ESPN answered back, adopting the card cam for its broadcast of the 2003 World Series of Poker, which was televised from beginning to end. Bravo took the hint and rounded up celebrities like Ben Affleck and David Schwimmer to take part in “Celebrity Poker Showdown,” further demonstrating the mass appeal of the game.

“TV exposure is the big reason for (the game’s) popularity,” said An as he showed me his pocket aces. “I spent last fall watching reruns of the World Series of Poker. One night the power in our apartment went out. So a bunch of us were bored and decided to play poker like the games on TV. Then, it turned into a regular poker night for us.”

Word of mouth, according to An, turned a simple get-together among five or six friends into a 10- to 12-man main event. Chang, whose flush was about to trump An’s pair of aces, is the prototypical friend of a friend, participating for the second time. But he knows what he’s doing, goading An into a betting war as the room hushed in anticipation. The hole cards revealed themselves, and loud curse words followed. The $54-pot went to Chang, and An was down to $5. The latter didn’t expect a bluff, but he also didn’t expect a flush.

An would go on to lose the rest of his chips, then fork over another $10, the standard buy-in, to stay in the game, which went from 11 p.m. to 2:30 a.m.– though marathon nights to five in the morning are not unusual. It’s surprising that not a single neighbor complained about the noisy trash talking and rattling of chips.

There was no discernible winner on this night, meaning there won’t be any names added to the apartment’s makeshift Wall of Fame, which posts certificates that read, “Westholme’s (week number) Weekly Texas Hold ’em Tournament, (name of winner), Champion on the Night of (date).”

“Yes, we document and honor our victors,” said Chang.

Not a single female was spotted on this night, but most of the players agree that female students are gradually learning the game.

“Girls are not as aggressive. They’re not mean and pushy, so when guys start throwing all this money down and raising, they get a little intimidated and fold. Most girls lose their money real fast, even though they have good hands,” said Steve Shin, a fourth-year physics student who came out of the night even and unscathed.

“That’s why we usually deter the girls not to come, unless it’s a slow night and we want their money,” added An. “No shame.”

Third-year English and Italian student Ariel Gordon, who has only played poker for two years, feels no shame in taking money from her male counterparts.

“I play games with six or seven of my guy friends, and I win just as much as the rest of them. It works to your advantage being a girl, since the guys don’t expect you to win,” said Gordon. “And then you take all their money.”

An and company take their poker seriously, as evident by their amazing recall of every meaningful hand they’ve ever won or lost.

“I remember one time my roommate had a three of a kind, and I didn’t have anything – just a flush draw that meant nothing after they revealed the river card. But I played it off like I had a flush and went all in. I dared him to put his money in. I knew he had something good, but I really wanted that pot. He ended up folding, and when I showed him my cards at the end, he got really pissed off.”

This kind of trash talking, reverse psychology and analysis of opponents’ mannerisms is nonexistent in online poker, which limits a player to staring at nothing but his computer screen. Despite its inadequacies, online poker is as much a phenomenon as live games.

“Obviously you can’t bluff as much online,” said Joshua Holman, a second-year business economics student who plays Texas Hold ’em at Royalvegaspoker.com for 35 to 40 hours a week. “But online poker is easier to set up; you can play anytime.”

Holman once woke up at 6 a.m. to sign up for an online poker tournament. He has even missed morning classes to compete in tournament games.

The stakes are also much higher in online poker, since players compete against strangers rather than roommates and friends. Holman has won $230 in a two-hour span and has lost $130 in one sitting.

“It’s a lot of money, so I do get angry and start throwing things when I lose,” said Holman. “But I’ve won enough that it’s almost a part-time job.”