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Even before I met Phil, I wanted to be on Bravo’s Celebrity Poker Showdown. Everybody looked like they were having such a good time. I liked the “personality interviews,” where the players tossed chips in the air, trash-talked their opponents, and then, serious for a minute, would discuss their chosen charity, and why it was so important.
My favorite players were David Cross, who wore his bathrobe, drank too much, and always played suited connectors, and Nicole Sullivan, a petite blonde who apologized when she won. “Oh dear,” she’d say, “I’m sorry.”
I wanted to be one of them, flinging wisecracks around, and having the audience yell, “All in,” every time you hesitate. At which point every celebrity worth his salt knows you’re supposed to say coyly: “Do you really think I should?” before throwing your cards in the muck. Unlike regular tournament poker, prevaricating is not only tolerated, it’s encouraged.
I knew I was a good candidate. Back then, the poker craze was in its embryonic stage, and there weren’t that many celebrities who actually knew how to play. At Norby Walter’s Wednesday night game, there was always a lot of discussion about who you had to know to get on that show. One day Norby took me aside, and asked if I wanted to play Celebrity Poker on TV. I didn’t know there was more than one celebrity poker show, and before you could say WPT, I was playing in their “Hollywood Home Game.”
It was my first time ever playing Texas Hold’em and I was on TV. I was scared out of my wits. I’m not sure, but I may not have said a single word during the entire broadcast. Later, I heard through the grapevine that the Bravo celebrity casting people had seen the show, and deemed me not worthy. “They don’t care about poker skills,” my source informed me loftily. “They just want people to be entertaining.”
Years go by. Every time I’d turn on Bravo, I’d see James Woods, Shannon Elizabeth, and Camryn Manheim whooping it up. Then they’d run out of celebrities, and start using them over. “Call them again.” I’d beg my publicist. “Tell them I was quiet because it was my first time.” Eventually I gave up. And then the phone call came. “We’d love to have Jennifer on our show.”
This year, the tournament is in New Orleans. All the celebrities are playing to benefit Hurricane Katrina charities. My charity is America’s Second Harvest, one of the nation’s biggest food banks. I picked it because when I was a starving actor, a food bank helped me. I find the idea of people being hungry in America very upsetting.
Harrah’s sends a private jet. Phil and I try to get a game going to pass the time. We propose freezeouts for $20 a person, but celebrities are notoriously cheap when it comes to mixing it up with their own money. We end up playing for $10 instead. Phil gets bored almost instantly. He pushes all in and goes in the other room to sleep. I stay in the game. I’m thinking I can glean valuable information about my opponents by watching them play. As for myself, I deliberately play in alien style to throw people off.
We arrive in New Orleans around dusk. Our giddy moods quickly subside as our limo rolls through neighborhoods of collapsed houses and rusting cars. Windows are smashed out or boarded up, and the streets are piled high with the detritus of ruined lives. We can see watermarks reaching up past the second floors. All the houses are spray painted with circles and numbers, indicating how many dead bodies or pets were found inside.
Our room at the hotel is gloomy and full of ghosts. That night Phil and I go for a walk through the abandoned streets of the French Quarter. I remember New Orleans before Katrina, a bawdy happy city with bustling streets and sidewalk bars, and music spilling out of every doorway. Wandering down the dark, empty alleys, we are more than a little spooked. When we arrive at K-Paul’s, we are relieved to find it full of people and the welcome smell of cooking. Everybody recognizes us, and we pose for pictures, feeling, irrationally, that we are doing our bit to make New Orleans a more hospitable place.
Jason Alexander and his friend are there, and after dinner we walk down Bourbon Street looking for a certain speakeasy his friend remembers, where they once let him play the piano. The club turns out to be Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop, one of the city’s oldest establishments. We order hurricanes and sit around the piano, which is illuminated with tiny candles, and listen to Jason’s friend sing Benny and the Jets, and momentarily we are happy again.
The next morning we head over to Harrah’s Casino. As we make our way to the soundstage, we are approached by employees who shake our hands and thank us for bringing business to New Orleans. “People have forgotten us,” they say. “We really appreciate what you’re doing.”
I am determined to be, if not a good poker player, at least a good celebrity. I am wearing an orange Dolce & Gabbana lace dress, and no sunglasses. I decide to treat it as an exhibition game – a talk show with cards. It doesn’t really matter who wins anyway, because it all goes to a good cause. At least, that’s what I say in my interview, just in case I lose. Then I throw chips in the air and try to think of bad things to say about my opponents. (“It makes it more fun if you insult the other players!” urges the guy behind the camera).
I do want to win, but I am dubious about my chances. I find it hard to play against nonpros. They never fold, and they’re impossible to read. I once played against a Baywatch actress who bet junk all the way to the river, and then played a set of aces the exact same way. How can you tell what they have if they don’t know themselves?
I check the list of table assignments, and am a little nonplussed to find at our table an internet player who beat out almost two-thousand contestants to win her seat. That leaves only four celebrities to create lively conversation: Fred Savage from The Wonder Years, Brett Butler, a comedienne, a rapper named Doug E Doug, and me.
Well, I know Brett Butler is really funny. “Thank God for Brett Butler,” I say to myself. I’ve never heard of Doug E Doug, but I’m hoping he’s a wacky character. Fred is a good kid, but a little on the serious side. But who knows? The internet player might be a wild card. Real people can sometimes make for great TV.
Phil Hellmuth Jr. comes into the make-up suite. It is his first show as the new host of Bravo’s Celebrity Poker Showdown. He doesn’t seem nervous at all. I hardly recognize him. He is wearing a pastel sweater, and his hair is combed back neatly. “You look like the Mr. Rogers of Poker,” I say. He chuckles. He spent the previous night bonding with Dave Foley. “I’m getting a little bored with Dom Perignon,” he confides.
The studio audience is sparse, but enthusiastic. I overhear one of the producers complaining about how hard it was to get people to come out. They bunch the tables together in the audience to make it look like there’s more of a crowd. Someone runs out into the lobby and manages to corral a bachelor party.
Now we are ready to begin. Dave Foley starts his monologue. “In Las Vegas they have a slogan ‘What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.’ But in New Orleans they have a saying that ‘What happens in New Orleans is ignored by the Federal Government.”
He strolls over to us for a little pre-game preamble. “Five poker players at this table. I know I’ve necked with at least one of you,” he says, staring pointedly at me. Many years ago, we made a film called The Wrong Guy. Our characters indulged in a chaste romance, culminating with a tentative make-out session on the porch.
Dave leaves, and the funny immediately stops. When I imagined myself on Celebrity Poker, I pictured a lively table filled with banter and flying witticisms. People at home would watch, and say, “Celebrities have so much more fun than the rest of us. Look, they all like each other. What a good time they’re having!”
Well it really isn’t like that. At all. Between the inception of the show several years ago, and now, poker suddenly became important. The days of “Whoops, I didn’t know I had a straight, haha,” are over. Now nobody wants to look stupid. Everybody is out to win.
The internet player, a mom from the Midwest, is very quiet, as anticipated. But what I didn’t expect, is that Brett, Doug E, and Fred are also really quiet. They all take their poker very seriously. Nobody is in the mood to joke around.
That leaves me to fill the void. I am desperately entertaining. I babble like a homeless person on crack. Since nobody on stage responds to anything I say, I suck up to the adoring audience. I explain my thought processes, I make sexual innuendo, I stack my chips in wildly creative ways. I am possibly the most annoying personality ever on the show. “I feel like I’m not doing my bit,” apologizes Fred during a break. “You’re out there juggling and spinning plates…”
Brett, in particular, is not enjoying herself at all. “Am I done yet? Can I go now?” she keeps asking at regular intervals. At one point she misunderstands the action, and calls my all-in. I tell her she can take her bet back, and the tournament director concurs, but she refuses. “I just want this to be over,” she whines. And sure enough it is. I “felt” her and Doug E Doug in the same hand.
She disappears into the Loser’s Lounge, and I hear her complaining that it was unfair for me to be “coffeehousing” during the game when I’m obviously the best player.
Fred is surprising me with his fortitude. On the plane, contemplating calling two all-ins, he showed me his hole cards: A-3 offsuit. “Do you think I should call?” he whispered. I shrugged, nonchalant. He’s potentially a competitor… I’m gonna give him poker advice?
Now he seems to have developed card sense overnight. At one point he slowplays the nut straight for maximum value. During a break, Phil Hellmuth comes over and proudly confides that he told Fred to slowplay big hands. Now I don’t know what is going on with the kid. What else has Phil told him? Every time I raise, he reraises. Every time I reraise, he goes all in. I give up on trying to read him and concentrate on isolating the internet mom.
A few unlucky hands later, I am out of the game. Dave Foley meets me in the Losers’ Lounge with a sympathetic, and not entirely sincere, “Awww.”
“Here’s what I learned,” I tell him. “It’s very difficult to play cards, and pander to the audience at the same time.” “I really like the way you played,” chirps Phil H e l l m u t h / M r Rogers. “I really like the way you were making a lot of raises, controlling the action. And I like the pandering bit. I think that worked well, because they were confused.” I stare at him all clean and shiny and optimistic. “Where is Phil Hellmuth Jr.?” I wonder. “What have you done with him?”
We have to stay in the Losers’ Lounge saying pithy things about the remaining contestants until the end, but it’s over pretty fast. Fred is green. He’s no match for the internet mom. Heads up, she keeps raising and he keeps folding. She chisels away at his net worth until there is nothing left of him. She advances to the final table. The rest of us stand up gratefully and stretch.
Phil and I will take the next plane back to New Orleans. I’m happy I don’t have to stick around until Sunday to play another game. Out of Practice has been nominated for a GLAAD award, and now I will be able to attend the ceremony. New Orleans is a frail shadow of her former self. Melancholy lies over the city like a thin layer of ash. Phil and I are anxious to get back to Vegas. The 25k is coming up. We don’t want to think of sad things any more. We just want to play cards.
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