IT was 10 in the morning and you could feel the charge in the air as 100 poker players, mostly in denim, made for a full house at the Lucky Buck Card Room in Livermore. It not only had the look, but the sound and feel of a World Series of Poker tournament. The conversation level was low, if constant, and the players were huddled tightly over small green felt tables as they fingered their stacks of chips.

Click, click, click, click, click.

Eventually the late arrivals entered red-eyed from the night before at the opening celebration of the five-day California Independent Film Festival. They bellied up to the tables just the same, equally no-nonsense in their attitude and ready to place their bets.

They, too, began to shuffle their chips.

Click, click, click, click, click.

Held during the last week of October, this was a celebrity poker tournament to benefit the California Independent Film Festival, and maybe I was expecting to see a different breed of poker players — well, you know what I mean, the scary dudes in those mirrored shades and low-brimmed hats. Instead, I met up with the sweet smiling face of Susan Ruttan, who is best known for her role as the loyal legal secretary on TVs L.A. Law.

She was there with her co-stars from the independent feature film produced by Livermores Jeff Morris, You Did What? Among them were A.J. Buckley from Wild Roomies, Ian Gomez from The Drew Carey Show and Jake in Progress, Edward Kerr from CSI: Miami, and Kathy Wagner from Come On, Get Happy: The Partridge Family Story.Also after chatting it up with Pleasanton film producer Donna Garrison about his recent directorial work on the action drama film 133, C. Thomas Howell of The Outsiders came to play.

So did Clint Howard, the former child star of Gentle Ben and such movies as Apollo 13, How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Splash. He was there to promote a short indie he was starring in, The Powder Puff Principle, along with Kevin Kliner from Almost Perfect and Art LaFleur from Santa Claus 2.

Suddenly I was brought back to reality from all the stargazing by Dale Comman, who had recently renovated and expanded his poker facility to accommodate the tournament and all of its players.

Is this crazy or what? he asked, a wide grin on his face. It was such a big deal that we couldnt pass it up.

Indeed, it was a big deal, but why poker? Why not a heated game of dominoes? Or golf?

Because poker is fun, he replied.

Yet it was more than that. Poker was a new twist on the old effort to stand out from the crowd, pointed out Tim Neeley, director of the California Independent Film Festival.

In past years weve had golf tournaments with around 40 players, and this year we put our finger on the pulse of the community, he said. As you can see from the outcome, it sold out fast, and we ended up with more than twice as many participants.

Speaking of which, I had accompanied one of the participants from Blackhawk to the tournament, Doralee Rae, who had finished 10th at the World Series of Poker Ladies Event in Tahoe three weeks earlier.

En route she had told me that you didnt have to be a pro to play in a tournament as long as you knew the basics of the game — in this case Texas Hold Em — and then added, It takes minutes to learn and a lifetime to master.

Minutes? Yeah, right.

A lifetime? A little more like it.

At any rate, she explained that the object of Texas Hold Em is to make your best five-card hand from seven cards: two cards dealt exclusively to you plus the five community cards dealt face-up on the table. Of these five cards, the first three are called the flop. The fourth card is called the turn, and the fifth card is called fifth street.

It turned out that there was very little about the game I didnt find interesting, and by the time Doralee had finished, I knew if someone said they had two aces but lost after the flop when a 10 came down the river, I could still reason that they were playing with a full deck.

Pleased with my newfound poker lexicon, I watched as the dealers threw out the first cards, and then continued around with players tossing in their chips and taking surreptitious peeks at their cards. The tourney then took on a repetitive pattern with cards dealt, bets placed, cards discarded, and players dropping out as they took big gambles betting all of their chips.

As for Richard Van Vleet, who is best known for his role as Chuck Tyler on All My Children, he got the boot after the first round.

It wasnt in the cards, he said philosophically, though if he wanted, he could have consoled himself with the fact that the hand that had eliminated him narrowed the field significantly.

A couple of rounds later, the host of the celebrity poker tournament, Christopher Knight, best known as Peter Brady of The Brady Bunch, went all in with two pair against Derrick Zemrack, founder and president of the California Independent Film Festival.

Yet Derrick caught what he needed to fill out a full house on the river — the last card in Texas Hold Em — sending himself to the final table and Christopher out of the tournament.

Bad luck in cards and good luck in life, Christopher said with a sidelong glance at his wife, Adrianne Curry, the first and most famous winner of the Americas Next Top Model.

The green-eyed beauty was sitting outside of the Lucky Buck Card Room signing autographs and chatting about her life as a model and a star of reality TV shows The Surreal Life and My Fair Brady.

She said she got the acting bug when she appeared on a couple of television sitcoms, Rock Me Baby and Half and Half, and that she had come to the festival to promote Fallen Angels, an indie horror drama film produced by Derrick, and one in which she said she gets killed in the first five minutes.

Good-naturedly gregarious, Adrianne said she had come as much for the social scene, which had its own distinct charms, including hanging out with Christophers friends from when he lived in Pleasanton.

Im no card-shark, so Id rather spend time having fun talking with people, she said. Besides, when it comes to poker, I seem to always embarrass myself.

Yeah, shed be all in with the first hand, said Christopher with a grin.

Yet even the best get beat, especially in tournaments. At this one, a minimal buy-in got you a nice stack of chips. Once they were gone, they were gone, and so after the fourth round, Doralee was folding up her tent and saying her goodbyes.

I was short stacked and found myself on the big blind with a forced bet and nothing to show, she said. The important thing is that I went the distance.

Regrets? Second guesses?

Not a bit, she said. There are players who rely on percentages, but what it comes down to is this: Either you get the cards or you dont. Its as simple as that.

Her chips were gone, and in the meantime, the game would continue until the last player had claimed them all.

Click, click, click, click, click.