Annie Duke, Poker, and The Apprentice

[PokerGoddess]

I’m going to let you in on a little secret: For the past couple of months, I’ve been glued to my TV on Sunday night watching The Celebrity Apprentice. And the reason was a simple one: to see how poker pro Annie Duke fared against the other celebs, in a fake competition to get a fake job, from a guy with fake hair.


And while I started watching to see how Annie did, I ended up watching to see just how badly poker players were going to be maligned on each episode by Joan Rivers.


Let me put this disclaimer in immediately: I know Annie Duke. And while many have taken a little objection to Annie’s type A personality over the years, I actually appreciated her honesty: You always know where you stand with Annie Duke. If you do something she doesn’t like, she will tell you. And if she smiles and compliments you, take it to the bank because you know it’s not real. That, to me, is an admirable quality.



Let me also say that I DON’T know Joan Rivers. But, having been involved in television in the past, I understand that good editors can make you look anyway they want. It’s their job. So to base my entire assessment of Joan Rivers on her appearance on the Celebrity Apprentice would be unfair. Almost as unfair as what Trump and his crew did to Annie Duke.


So here’s the premise: A bunch of celebrities are pitted against one another doing various tasks to try to avoid being "fired" by The Donald. This particular field included Dennis Rodman, Clint Black, Brande Roderick, Tom Green, Natalie Gulbis (YAY! – sorry...that was a personal observation...please carry on), Herschel Walker, Jesses James, and the Rivers clan - Joan and daughter Melissa. And poker pro Annie Duke. It would be easy and fair to say that Annie was almost certainly the contestant with the least amount of celebrity. As well known as she is inside the poker world, she’s equally unknown outside of it.



If you don’t know Annie, here’s what you need to know: She is ridiculously smart. She double majored in English and Psychology at Columbia, was awarded a fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania, and ended up leaving school one month shy of defending her PhD thesis. That she left school to pursue a relationship speaks to her free spirit, and her strong will. And she is a damn fine poker player, with some WSOP wrist hardware to her name as well as some big tournament wins. She also LOVES to compete, and this was evident in 2004, where she passed on the much easier Women’s Championship in the WSOP to play in the open field Omaha Hi-Lo, which she one. She refused to play in the Women’s Only event because she felt that female poker players were equal to males, and they didn’t need a special event to compete. That led to some surreal WSOP film footage of Annie going on to win that Omaha event with the women’s championship going on in the background.



Just before the Celebrity Apprentice began airing, I had a chance to speak with Annie. She had some interesting things to say. She felt that her understanding of reading people, and of games theory, gave her a huge edge on the rest of the celebs, who just weren’t in her league when it came to playing games. And, while she was bound by a non-disclosure agreement with NBC, she gave some indication that she did pretty well on the show.


So, with that information in mind, I watched the show with some interest. And, Annie appeared to be exactly right: she outplayed EVERYONE from the moment the show started. Including the Rivers. And somehow, because of some perceived slight, where Joan Rivers felt that Annie said something that she didn’t back up, Joan lost her mind.



Joan Rivers launched a personal attack on Annie that was almost beyond belief. She called Annie every name in the book, including saying that she was worse than Hitler. What was even more unbelievable was the slander she fired at poker players in general.


Rivers called poker players scum...mafia...beneath her. She said that the money they donated was dirty, and blood money. It was absolutely shocking to hear her go off about the poker profession in general, and Annie in particular.


Now let’s be real. Back in Joan’s day, about 3,000 BC, Joan

was right, the gambling world WAS full of less than desirable characters. But, unlike Joan and her comedy routine, things have changed. Just check into a charity poker event like Ante Up For Africa, and it’s easy to see. "A" list celebs, not the "B" listers like Joan and Melissa, fill the tables donating their money and time. And poker professionals are right there with them. They are as philanthropic as can be, and come from every walk of life. The Main Event of the World Series has doctors, lawyers, judges, university professors, policemen and firemen, nurses, social workers, and just about every other type of profession you can imagine. They have their jobs, but they are also POKAH PLAYAHS, as Joan says with such venom. My only criticism of Annie during that whole TV series was her comeback to Joan’s smear campaign on poker was to say ‘Poker players are awesome people’. While that is definitely true, I expected a better response from Annie. But that was the only time she seemed overwhelmed by a Joan attack.
And, since this show was purportedly about business, let’s look at the bottom line: Annie, and her poker player friends, raised more than half a million dollars for Annie’s charity, Refugees International. Joan, and her saintly entertainment world friends, couldn’t raise 30% of that amount. If charity is a saintly characteristic, it appears there are a lot more saints in poker than in show biz.


But in the end, Donald Trump chose Joan over Annie, despite, as Annie pointed out, behaviour from Joan that would have gotten her fired from ANY company. Annie clearly outplayed, outsmarted, but didn’t outlast everyone else. It turned out that Trump, smart businessman that he is, went with the more famous name rather than the best player, because the show is all about ratings. He got his good versus evil finale, but I think he mixed up who was good and who was evil.


Annie did poker players proud, with her intelligence, her competitive spirit, and her charitable nature. And nothing that Joan Rivers can scream will change that. Congrats, Annie, you got fired from a job you didn’t really want. Well played!
Chris Tessaro