The Obscure Poker Raffle

I like Celebrity Poker Challenge. For one thing I would feel guilty if I didn’t because they are playing for charity and sneering at this show would be like booing at the Special Olympics. Can you imagine a guy at the Special Olympics hooting from the cheap seats because the mentally-challenged aren’t running very fast, or in a perfectly straight line? Same thing with the Celebrities on this show - they are doing the best they can and I’m not going to berate them because they are not world champion players.

Celebrity Poker Challenge is a TV show on Bravo. I’m not sure all the times it airs, but I usually end up watching it about 3am. Each week 5 celebrities play a No Limit Holdem tournament and the winner moves on until only one player remains. All the prize pool money is given to charities of the celebrities choosing. The commentators for the show are professional poker player/zillionaire Phil Gordon and a guy named David Foley, whose is not so well known for his TV acting parts on "From the Earth to the Moon" and “The Lawrenceville Stories” and “Echoes in the Darkness” and “Anne of Avonlea”.

After seeing a Texas Holdem kit at the grocery store a while back I wondered what was next. How far could it go? America’s obsession with Poker and Celebrities was destined to collide. Finding this show at 3am on Bravo floating amid the late night air waves alongside TV Land, over-zealous preachers and the latest fitness product/self-improvement/easy-riches promotions appears to be the inevitable handiwork of Fate. But I must warn you up front that the show is not very appropriately named. I often have a hard time recognizing a celebrity at the table. One week had the stellar line-up of Kathleen Madigan, Billy Brochtrup, Dule Hill, Kelli Williams and Carlos Bernard. If you tuned in 2 weeks later you would have witnessed the star power of Jeremy London, Ian Gomez, Alison Sweeney, Wendy Pepper and Camryn Maheim. Very few of them have any poker skill whatsoever and often the game stops in mid-play as one of the rules, such as how much you can bet in No Limit Holdem, are explained. I don’t blame Bravo for calling the show Celebrity Poker Challenge. It’s not accurate, but it is probably easier to market than a show called The Little-Known Card Lottery Blunderfest.

In truth a few good poker players and some real celebrities show up on a few of the shows. Ben Affleck and James Woods fit into both categories, however the majority of the time Phil Gordon’s play-by-play is akin to watching Gary Kasparov narrate kindergarten kids playing chess. You can picture it something like this: “Oh my a terrible move by Bobby as has left his Queen exposed, that will be curtains for him. Wait a minute, Sally didn’t see it. Unbelievable! For some inexplicable reason she decided to move her knight to the corner of the board and passed on this opportunity to cripple Bobby…she says the knight looks better over there…Now Bobby has a check-mate opportunity…Bobby is thinking…” Of course this is poker and not chess so anybody can win on any given night. Neither Ben Affleck or James Woods made could survive the first round.

The “celebrities” have fun and you won’t see a lot of chip riffling and stare-downs here. The famous guy, um, I forget his name, but he is the guy who added biting comedic commentary to that MTV show that provided a nostalgic look at the pop-culture of the 1970ies and 1980ies. I think the show was called, Remember the 80ies. Anyway, that guy once reverently pulled out a lucky autographed picture of his idol David Copperfield in order to influence the God of Magic. It worked too! For a while anyway. But he eventually lost, tore up the photo and spat on it in disgust.

Once players lose they are not allowed to leave, but are sentenced to the Loser’s Lounge where Phil Gordon sympathizes and offers instructional advice and David Foley helps them get drunk as they watch the rest of the show play out. Anyway, I think you get the idea. If you find yourself awake at 3AM and you’re tired of The Brady Bunch and The Munsters and you are not yet willing to let Anthony Robbins unleash your inner-power, switch over to The Celebrity Poker Challenge for some laughs. The show is also on at some hours where normal people watch TV too, but I think it plays better at 3AM.