Seventy-five year old Philip Cole didn’t learn to play Texas Hold-em until three years ago, and 49 year old Elmo Mariathasan, being a native from Sri Lanka, never even heard of this popular poker game. However, they both will soon be heading off for Las Vegas to compete at Harrah’s World Series of Poker.

They will be joined by Mitchell Smith of Cape Coral and Eddie Irizarry of Naples. All were finalists in a tournament held at the Naples-Fort Myers Greyhound Track on May 10. A Naples resident and former stockbroker, Cole remarks how he had played on and off, but didn’t start playing Texas Hold-em until about three years ago. “I read about a half-dozen books about it and I have a friend who’s been playing for years and years. He told me the only way to get good is to just sit down and play,” says Cole. And that is exactly what Cole did: sat down at a dog track poker table and started playing. “I've won about five or six tournaments there and now I go out to Vegas about three times a year. I played in this one single table tournament where T.J. Cloutier (a Poker Hall of Fame inductee) was playing, and I knocked him out. When he was leaving the table he said ‘I don’t know how to read you.’ That’s the biggest compliment I've ever had.”

In Sri Lanka poker isn’t too big, so Elmo Mariathasan wasn’t introduced to the game until later in his life. “I was a craps player. When I moved here (Fort Myers) from New York, I was looking for a casino, and someone told me about Immokalee. Well, they didn’t have craps there, but they had poker.” Mariathasan slowly learned the game. He says that players have to know the cards, but the key to being successful at poker is being able to read the people and “understanding when to play your cards.” Playing at the World Series of Poker is a dream Mariathasan has had for several years, and he is planning on making the very most of his trip to Vegas. “It’s unbelievable. I can’t wait.”