Poker face I’ve been dedicated to the latest card craze my whole life. Too bad I’m not any good. BY ALAN OLIFSON

As I handed over my hard-earned cash to the guy at the mall cart, all I could think of was my parents’ bowling balls. I could see them, collecting dust on the top shelf of my spare-bedroom closet: a mysterious, glitter-adorned link to my parents’ freewheeling past, sealed in monogrammed pleather bags. I have no memory of my parents actually bowling, only of their balls. (There has got to be a better way to say that.)

So when I bought the clay poker chips, I began to worry — is poker my bowling? Would these Vegas-style chips, in their snug-fitting, felt-lined metal case, become my glitter bowling ball? A dusty relic for my kids to discover in the back of a closet and ask, "Daddy, is this what you did for fun before life beat you into submission?"

I drove home, opened up the case, and examined the chips again, flipping them through my fingers. Their weight, their sense of permanence, reassured me. This was no fad purchase. This was motivated by a true love of the game.

I’ve been playing poker since I was seven, learning the old-fashioned way — from my grandmother. She and my great-aunts and great-uncles were poker fiends. We played cards the way other families played Yahtzee, ending every holiday meal in a blur of noodle kugel, Yiddish, and penny-ante seven-card stud.

My most prized inheritance from my grandmother is a classic retractable poker-chip holder, into which I quickly deposited my new clay chips. The holder is a smooth cylinder with a knob on top. Turning the knob spins out the chip holders like the arms of a waking octopus. Every time I break out this beauty to play a game, I know my grandmother is looking down on me proudly — until she sees me play. Then she probably shakes her head and leaves.

As it turns out, I suck at poker.

I am like Salieri, Mozart’s rival in Amadeus, cursed with a passion for something but not blessed with the talent to pursue it. And so I sublimate by collecting paraphernalia.

The clay chips are just the latest. My dining-room table converts into a card table. Seriously. It’s a hand-me-down from a family friend’s vacation home. Removing the table’s octagonal top reveals two things. First, a regulation bumper-pool table. Unfortunately, the wood under the felt is so horribly warped that every shot ends up nestled against one side of the table. So the table’s only good use is to randomly produce cue balls from the pockets underneath when guests are over for dinner: "Did you just drop this?"

But flip the top over and you’ve got an eight-person card table — complete with drink holders, chip racks, and a generous playing area.

All the more space for me to lose my money.

Growing up with the game as I did, I should have been positioned to take advantage of the current national craze. In a world where every Johnny-come-lately who’s learned the difference between a flush and a straight from a Celebrity Poker Showdown marathon is hosting a game on the felt-top table he picked up at Crate & Barrel, I should be king. Instead, I’m getting my clock cleaned on a bimonthly basis.

Last week, I even lost to my own mother. And not because she’s a card shark like my grandmother — that gene definitely skipped a generation (or two, apparently). No, I lost to my mom because, after I had successfully bluffed everyone else out, she decided to see my raise just to "keep my son company." Thanks, Mom.

And not playing for money isn’t an option. People who cheerily suggest, "Hey, let’s play for pretzels!" miss the point entirely — unless you really like pretzels, and you’re playing with the last bag on earth. The whole thrill of poker is intimately tied to monetary risk. If there’s no real risk, everyone bluffs, no one folds, and the best hand always wins. Snooooore. The whole point of the game is that, oftentimes, the best hand loses. It’s the best player who wins. It’s all about reading people, deceit, bravado, and self-control. So the fact that I actually tear up with laughter when I draw a full house is probably one reason I rarely have much luck in the game.

I’d be better off if poker were a fad for me, a passing fancy I’d eventually set aside for more-mature pursuits, like pinochle or canasta. But while the World Championship of Poker may very well follow Bowling for Dollars into the museum of pop-culture curiosities — another generation’s way of creating sporting celebrities out of middle-aged men with beer bellies — I’m afraid my love affair is going to live on. I guess my only option is to get better — or to buy some accessories.

Send poker tips to Alan Olifson at alan@olifson.com