So, poker's back at Mohegan Sun with the opening of the new Casino of the Wind, and so far it all looks rather plush and comfortable, with high-back chairs and thick carpeting, if bland.

The original poker room at Mohegan Sun, before managers shut it down five years ago, seemed, on the other hand, like it could have been created from an old Vegas playbook on how to run a crowd-pleasing card joint.

The room had the look and feel of a 24-hour playhouse, a regular cast of characters, from customers who knew each other's nicknames, quirks and card-playing habits, to a few dealers who, the casino finally alleged, were buying and selling drugs on the floor.

In fact a management investigation into reports of drug use, drug dealing, loan sharking and prostitution in the poker room ended with three employees being fired in June 2003.

Seventy-one-year-old Arlene Olderman of Hamden, a regular in the old room, told me this week she never put much stock in the prostitution rumors that circulated around one of the female customers. Investigators looked into reports that the poker manager's office was used for the prostitution assignations, because it didn't have surveillance cameras.

”If you saw her, I don't think you would have paid two bucks,” said Olderman, with a frankness I got accustomed to in the course of our phone conversation.

When they finally shut down the room, about one month after the firings, casino executives said there was not enough demand in the poker market to justify keeping it open. They said it wasn't related to the drug dealing/prostitution/loan sharking investigation.

The decision incensed a lot of the regulars, like Olderman, who said she resented being lied to about poker demand as the casino turned over the poker room's prime casino real estate to slots.

Casino executives, who, in hindsight acknowledged missing the wave of poker popularity that was about to crest around the world, told analysts at the time of the room closing that they hoped to double the $6 million a year they were making on poker by converting to slots.

Olderman and others signed a petition calling on management to keep the room open, and she remembered this week how mad she was when she went into a security office near the poker room to sign it.

The poker room was so mobbed at the time, the corridors clogged with people waiting for tables, that you could barely get in and out, Olderman recalled.

”I was so pissed. So I opened the door to the security office. I was livid. I said, 'You know what, you guys are right. The poker room should be closed. But the fire marshal should be closing it because you can't get in and out,' “ she said.

”I'm an old lady, but I slammed the door with so much force I smashed my rings ... When the letter came (about the closing) people were very, very upset. What are we, morons? We can't see the room is mobbed at any given time?”

Olderman and other Mohegan poker players naturally migrated to Foxwoods, where a casino floor space rearrangement eventually moved the room from a bright concourse location to a basement space. Olderman calls it “dark, dreary and depressing.”

Still, on a visit last week, I found the Foxwoods room to have the kind of livability you might expect from a place where people spend hours and hours on end, from a convenient snack bar/deli and lots of restrooms to an outdoor smoking patio. And it's huge, still clearly the regional power house in poker.

The new room at the Sun, despite the plush chairs, seems like a timid stab at getting back in the game. It's small, out of the way, and like the rest of the new Casino of the Wind, very dark, much darker than Foxwoods' poker room, too dark maybe for the dark mirrored glasses some poker players favor.

It will be interesting how many of the old regulars, like Olderman, make their way back.

”I haven't been yet,” she said this week, clearly in no hurry, but not ruling it out either. “I'm going to wait for things to settle down.”

THIS IS THE OPINION OF DAVID COLLINS.

Article UID=a6a970b9-ee1c-46a5-9ce7-dcea51806d7c