Celebrity Poker
12 May
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We, the plebeian masses, cram around our kitchen tables exchanging dice and chips or toddle down to the local casino to grind it out with a 50/50 mix of cabbies and hoodied students. Even my friend’s parakeet has a PokerStars account.
Some of us ‘normals’ go on to our 15 minutes; playing on ESPN, surrounded by logos for beef-jerky and American beer.
But on occasion, the demigods descend into the casino pit and throw in a little of their fame-money in with our filthy lucre. Movie stars, directors, athletes, comedians, and writers all do it, even educated fleas do it. They all play poker.
At least these 10 celebrities do:
Ben Affleck
This dimple-chinned actor, Oscar-award winning writer/director, and chief lightning rod for anger over Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor has a reputation for being a solid and classy card-player too.
Although not so much of an enthusiast he was willing to waive his $1m appearance fee to attend a tournament. If only homeland security hadn’t made it too difficult to helicopter him out to the cruise ship, he might even have got his hands on that money.
Having said that, he seems a pretty good guy to play with. In the Molly Bloom exposé for Vanity Fair on the big Hollywood game she hosted for several years, Affleck is one of the few players who doesn’t come across as a cock-womble.
He, and a select few actors and producers, would squeeze into one of those cramped luxury Hollywood villas and duke it out in cash games with minimum buy-ins in the$50,000-$100,000 region.
You know who also attended and really does come across as a bit of a cock-womble in Bloom’s piece? Well…
Tobey Maguire
Despite Toby being something of a shark at the table, or perhaps because of it, he seems like a spectacularly unpleasant player even when compared to the wider poker field.
Bloom pretty much moulded the games she ran around him, a game he was one of the biggest winners in, and he still pinched pennies over using his favorite shuffling machine, tipped poorly, and at one point he tried to get the Bloom to climb on the table and bark like a seal for a $1,000-chip. Allegedly.
Despite all this, I still stand by him as Spider-Man (your thoughts on this in the comments).
There is a coda to the Bloom story. A number of players, including Maguire were sued for the winnings they took off ponzi-schemer Brad Ruderman.
In Maguire’s case this is only $300k, but after the fuss he made over $200 a game for his shuffling machine, he is probably still hurting, one imagines and hopes.
Jennifer Tilly
The Bloom game alone could throw up a few other names of greater note – you may, for example, have heard of Leonardo DiCaprio. And a few of lesser note – Rick Solomon of One Night in Paris ‘fame’ anyone?
But the world of film has given us plenty of other players, some of whom have become more noted for their poker wins than their onscreen careers.
For example, at the time of writing, I believe Jennifer Tilly is the only person to own a WSOP bracelet, an Oscar nomination, and a maintain a recurring character on Family Guy. A rare case of balance between hobby and career success.
Nowadays she is probably known better for her appearances at the card table, than for her role in, say, Liar, Liar, or the rather dismal attempt to remake The Hustler as the poker movie: Deal.
Speaking of which…
Elizabeth Shannon
The female lead of Deal was American Pie alumni, Elizabeth Shannon, another person who seems better known around the baize than for her movie roles. After taking third in the 2007 NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship, it looked like she might be heading for a break-out into the poker scene, but so far that is pretty much all she wrote for big wins.
There are a slew of other actors, Matt Damon, Edward Norton, James Woods, even UK national treasure Stephen Fry is supposed to have been a regular in a private game at the Groucho Club.
Nick Cassavetes
No Oscars yet for Nick Cassavetes, but he does have a Palm D’Or nomination and lets face it, his real kudos come from all the tears we collectively shed while watching The Notebook.
Cassavettes has had a couple of reasonable cashes in WPT and WSOP events, and a half-dozen episodes of High Stakes Poker in which an awestruck Esfandiari asks him over and over how anyone could possibly have written Blow.
Rafael Nadal
Nadal signed with PokerStars a couple of years ago, presumably so he could have them sponsor a dealer for his home game.
The international tennis whizz went up against Negreanu and others in a big publicity match last year but his actual tournament performance is rather lacking. According to the Hendon Mob his lifetime earnings are $0.00 to date.
Michael Phelps
Celebrity Poker Videos
‘ Michael Phelps plays poker.’
‘I know. What a fish!’
‘Yeah, and he’s quite good at cards too.’
…
You’re welcome, Internet. I’m here all week, try the veal, it's excellent.
In all seriousness though, Phelps has 22 Olympic medals, all of them for swimming, and one DUI – which is also liquid based. However, only the DUI can be linked to his interest in poker: he was coming from a game at a Maryland Casino when he got caught.
His tournament results aren’t huge, a few thousand here and there, but he has been interviewed by Card Player, spotted at the World Series, and hangs out with Antonio Esfandiari, so he is at least around poker even if he isn’t crushing it yet
Shane Warne
Cricket is the dullest sport invented. Fact. Which might be why notorious lothario, Shane Warne, resorts to high-stakes gambling in his time off.
Although how ‘off’ that time is may be debatable as he is sponsored by 888 Poker . I would love to see the morality clause in that contract. Still he’s famous, so on the list he goes.
Vicky Coren Mitchell
These last two people may suffer some parochial bias on my part. The UK’s stars may be smaller but they punch fairly hard.
Vicky Coren: writer, host of Only Connect, and regular on the UK panel show circuit is one. She somewhat blurs the line between between being a poker playing celebrity and a celebrity poker-player as she is kind of a pro. But semantics are uninteresting, she makes the list.
Martin Amis
He may have a somewhat bare HendonMob page, and his only public game of poker was a celebrity episode of Channel 4’s Late Night Poker in which he, Fry, Coren, and Ricky Gervais among others, played on what was, at the time, a novel thing for the UK viewer: a table with hole cam. However, Amis has always talked eloquently of his teenage obsession with the game, and his ongoing love of ‘the cool ostentation of poker’ with its ‘clandestine, male-supremacist, and incurably Yankophone’ language, and he did play the 2006 WSOP championship event for an Australian Magazine.
There have been a number of other writers through the years who played poker, some of them great. Hemingway played as you might imagine he would, saying ‘Never call; either raise or put it down.’ While Ian Fleming, though a player, admitted to being too much of a drinker and smoker to win much at the game.
Living writers too have had their affairs with the game. Most famously Anthony Holden and Al Alvarez both slipping away from their more literary pursuits for a year in order to write their respective books about poker: Big Deal and The Biggest Game in Town, and David Mamet set his first screenplay around a card table so that he could shoot it with his poker-buddies. But in terms of celebrity, it is hard to imagine a poker-playing author alive who gets more press than Mart does.
These lists are always more interesting as sources of random trivia than as definitive rankings; have I missed some notable public figure who pokers? Let me know in the comments.
In this new Card Player series, we rank things in the poker world in an attempt to stir up some debate.
This week we take a look at the best celebrity poker players, who even without their celebrity status would be noteworthy in the poker community. Although, some probably wouldn’t have the bankroll to be a force in the biggest cash games and highest buy-in events around, but that’s besides the point. Celebrities help to legitimize the poker industry to casual outsiders of the game. Here are some of the best at doing this task:
1. Gabe Kaplan: It’s hard to think of any celebrity in poker more skilled than Kaplan. The 66-year-old New York native, arguably best known for his role in the 1970s sitcom, Welcome Back, Kotter, transitioned himself into quite the card shark, eventually landing a gig as the host of GSN’s High Stakes Poker in 2006. In addition to the cash game notoriety, Kaplan has cashed for more than $1.1 million in tournaments, $131,000 of which came at the final table of the 2007 World Series of Poker $50K H.O.R.S.E. Kaplan is the Phil Ivey of celebrity poker players.
2. Tobey Maguire: The Spider-Man star is so good compared to his celebrity peers, he was sued. Well, not exactly. Maguire, who is currently facing litigation for more than $300,000 in poker winnings at a series of underground Hollywood home games, is allegedly a $10-million winner lifetime in these celeb invite-only affairs (11-time WSOP winner Phil Hellmuth tossed out the figure in a 2007 episode of Poker After Dark). It seems fair to assume that the 36-year-old actor has won more on the felt than any person on this list.
3. Jennifer Tilly: As perhaps the most accomplished tournament player on this list (with the exception of Kaplan), Tilly does boast a WSOP $1,000 ladies championship bracelet. The former actress has accumulated nearly $600,000 in career tournament earnings, despite some notoriety for mistakes made in televised cash games. Along with her bracelet, she won a $5,000 event at the Bellagio last summer for $124,455 and a WPT invitational tournament in 2005 for $25,000.
4. Rick Salomon: The son of a former Warner Bros. executive vice president is a poker aficionado, but perhaps best known for his supporting role in 1 Night in Paris. Despite tabloid stardom, Salomon has found time to rack up $237,000 in career tournament earnings, which includes a win in a 2006 Bellagio Cup event. To this day, he can still be found in some of the biggest cash games in Las Vegas and around the country. His results in these games are unknown, although for what it’s worth, he did manage to dust off a $50,000 buy-in at a Rio cash game this summer — in about 30 seconds.
5. Sam Simon: Although you might be drawing dead to notice him in a crowded poker room, The Simpsons co-creator has quietly amassed quite the list of poker accomplishments. He has won three no-limit hold’em tournaments over the past three years, totally more than $100,000. Combined with a deep run in this summer’s WSOP main event, Simon has collected $344,000 in lifetime earnings. Interesting fact: Simon was married to Jennifer Tilly from 1984-1991.
6. Ben Affleck: With a $10,000 buy-in major no-limit hold’em title on his poker resume, the movie star has accomplished what many seasoned pros are still longing for. Despite the $356,400 win in the 2004 California State Poker Championship, Affleck has not parlayed the experience to tournament stardom. He outlasted a meager field of 90 players en route to capturing his one and only big-time poker tournament win, and if it wasn’t for his run-good back in 2004, the poker community might associate him more with his best friend; Rounders star Matt Damon (who reportedly is awful at competitive poker). Affleck is also an alleged participant in the high-stakes Hollywood home games, and mixed reviews of his results have come forth.
7. Nick Cassavetes: A participant on PokerStars’ The Big Game and GSN’s High Stakes Poker, the director of the quintessential chick flick, The Notebook (2004), has proved to be anything but gooey with emotion at the poker table. In addition to holding his own against the top cash game players in the world, Cassavetes has cashed for $142,000 lifetime in tournaments. He was close to a WSOP main event final table in 2005, finishing in 93rd place for $77,000. Like Maguire, the director is also being sued for poker winnings.
8. Bruce Buffer: Buffer has racked up $259,047 in prize money on the felt and he has also appeared on Poker After Dark. The Bruce Buffer Poker Room was also named in his honor at the Luxor in Las Vegas, as his accolades in the poker world have been adding up since his breakout tournament performance where he made the final table at the 2005 World Poker Tour Celebrity Invitational.
9. Shannon Elizabeth: “So uh, ‘grinder’ is the expression?” – The former American Pie actress plays a lot of tournament poker, and has some results to justify the hours at the felt. Elizabeth finished third in the 2007 NBC National Heads-Up Championship (invitation only) for a score of $125,000. Unfortunately for her, 2007 has, up until this point, been the peak of her poker career.
10. Michael Phelps: Although he has just one final table and a measly $5,213 in career tournament earnings, the millionaire Phelps could become a force on the circuit once his Olympic career winds down. In a Card Player interview a while back, Phelps, who is also a backer, said he loves the game, and is excited about improving on the felt in the near future. Not much is known about his skill level, but he should have the time and the resources to take a shot in retirement.
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Honorable Mentions (based on career tournament earnings):
Celebrity Poker Tournament
Teddy Sheringham ($249,055), Fatima De Melo ($233,269), Alexia Portal ($160,762), Orel Hershiser ($90,000), James Woods ($65,504), Boris Becker ($61,315), Lou Diamond Phillips ($51,476), Jason Alexander ($29,107), Trishelle Cannatella ($20,000), Ray Romano ($18,176), Norm MacDonald ($15,208), Ricki Lake ($7,732), Cornell Iral Haynes, Jr. (a.k.a. Nelly), Brad Garrett.