TV Poker is pretty compulsive to watch, but no more so than when E-List American celebs are playing. Challenge TV shows a World Poker Tour celeb spesh from probably 2002, with minor movie stars like Jennifer Tilly and James Woods (okay, Woods isn’t minor, but he does not get the cards in this game). But what can we glean from this game of poker? That er’s Ming Na is a pretty jammie customer. That Tilly has a rock solid poker face. And that Daniel Baldwin, possibly the worst of the Baldwin brothers, is a horrific poker bully.
Not only is he fat, wearing a terrible shirt and sweating like a pig, he is pretending to be drunk like only an actual drunk can. He monsters the hands, he intimidates the girls, he calls James Woods by some ridiculous nickname. And for a terrifying period he does rather well – by pure bully power. Which makes it all the more wonderful when he gets completely wiped off the board by a pair of deuces.
One of the interesting thing about this series of televised poker is that the players, on the whole, are really not very good. Therefore all the errors of beginner play (over confidence, transparent bluffing, pointless bravura raises) can be seen. It also really stands out when a good player turns up (Mimi Rogers in the second show I saw was cool as a cucumber and played the odds perfectly). Unfortunately though the show destroys some of the suspense by revealing the players hands too early. It is sometimes nice to play along, at least up to the river card, to see if you can read the players too.
Poker is not a game where moral superiority wins the day. But equally it is not a game that favours the bully in the long term. By all means monster the odd hand, but have some respect for your opponents, it’s a social game. The rest of the punters were having a good time. For Daniel Baldwin it was a matter of life or death. Career wise it probably was, surely no casting director having seen this would touch this bouzer loser with a bargepole.