Casino news source: The Time-Picayune - http://www.nola.com/
Relief is in the cards
'Celebrity Poker Showdown' brings stars to the poker table at Harrah's New Orleans
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Dave Walker
'CELEBRITY POKER SHOWDOWN'
What: Joy Behar, Andrea Martin, Kim Coles and Jorge Garcia (above) are among those featured in an episode of the card-playing series taped at Harrah's New Orleans Casino.
Greg Behrendt learned Texas Hold 'Em the night before his "Celebrity Poker Showdown" debut.
"I'm not kidding you," he said. "I'd never really played, but I was interested in doing a charity event."
Behrendt, who will debut his own syndicated daytime-TV talk show this fall, is in the first flight of celebs playing in the new season of the poker series, which premieres tonight at 8 on the Bravo cable network.
All hands were shot at Harrah's New Orleans in April, with all players playing for Hurricane Katrina relief charities.
Despite his latecomer status, Behrendt, a stand-up comedian turned best-selling author (co-writing the relationship how-to books "He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys" and "It's Called a Break-Up Because It's Broken: The Smart Girl's Break-Up Buddy") loved the "Showdown" experience.
As a bonus, Behrendt said he played surprisingly well.
"For a guy who taught himself the night before, you'd be surprised," he said. "The reason I think I did well is that I play with the lucidity of a junkie. I'm in and out the whole time. You can't fake that kind of poker face. If you don't know what's going on, how can anyone read you?"
Others in tonight's opening game include Andrea Martin ("SCTV"), Kim Coles ("One on One"), Jorge Garcia ("Lost") and Michael Ian Black (endless VH1 "I Love the ..." series).
Later in the season, which concludes with a July 5 championship table, players include Bryan Cranston ("Malcolm in the Middle"), Jason Alexander ("Seinfeld"), Kevin Sorbo ("Andromeda"), Fred Savage ("The Wonder Years"), Jennifer Tilly ("The Haunted Mansion"), Brett Butler ("Grace Under Fire"), Jenna Fischer ("The Office"), Christopher Meloni ("Law & Order: Special Victims Unit"), Joy Behar ("The View"), Andy Dick ("Less Than Perfect" and singer Macy Gray, among others.
Dave Foley ("NewsRadio") hosts. Phil Hellmuth, winner of nine World Series of Poker titles, provides color commentary.
Behar, whose first-round game will air June 28, said her favorite table game is blackjack, not poker, though she once sat in on a standing game at Whoopi Goldberg's place.
Like Behrendt, Behar had to bone up on Texas Hold 'Em before shooting "Showdown."
"I had somebody come over to my house and show me the ins and outs of the game," she said. "There's all this psyching out your opponent that goes into it. In blackjack, you're playing against one dealer.
"You have to read people's minds in this game. It's not easy. It's tricky."
Surely someone who holds her own at the savage weekday round-table called "The View" can handle not flinching while holding a full house in a charity card game.
We'll see.
"The cards are the cards," Behar said. "You do the best you can with it."
Both Behrendt and Behar took devastation tours while in town.
It's getting to be an old story, but both said everything they'd read or seen on TV inadequately prepared them for what they saw.
Behar toured the 9th Ward and later shared pictures of what she saw there with her "View" pals and viewers.
"It was much worse than I had thought," she said. "It was quite upsetting to see certain things, very touching.
"You see the devastated homes and think of the lives of the people who lived there.
"That sort of thing brings it right home to you."
Behrendt was in San Francisco for the 1989 World Series earthquake, then Los Angeles for the 1994 Northridge quake.
"Those were just hairline fractures compared to (New Orleans)," he said. "Time magazine did a cover story on the (San Francisco) earthquake and it looked like all of San Francisco had fallen into the bay. The fact of the matter was that it was a few city blocks and part of a bridge. To then go to a place where that was an actuality was pretty devastating.
"We were being driven in from the airport and immediately everyone went silent. We were all chatty -- poker this and poker that -- and that just ended."
Of course, the mission was not all duty and grimness.
This was Behrendt's first visit to New Orleans, and he found the undamaged sectors enchanting.
It helped that he had good touring company.
"I somehow ended up making pals with Macy Gray," he said.
The two had been on the same plane coming to New Orleans, and Gray later invited Behrendt to dinner by crank-calling him in his hotel room to confirm an unplaced room service order for steaks and collard greens.
"The French Quarter was amazing, and everyone was super cool to us," Behrendt said. "Obviously, you roll with Macy Gray, how bad could it be?"
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