Invite Only

Every year at the conclusion of the LAPC, the Commerce Casino puts up $200,000 and hosts the World Poker Tour's Celebrity Invitational event, which is open to poker players who have won or purchased a seat in the upcoming $25K Bellagio Championship and to a slew of whatever-list celebrities and assorted gaming- and entertainment-industry people, who are invited.

There are around 450 players total, competing for $100K for first place down to $5K for sixth. There is also a separate prize-structure that awards up to $10,000 to the charities of the last-standing invited celebrities, ten donations total. Although the structure was improved this year (25/25 and 10,000 chips), it's basically a turbo tournament with half-hour levels, and the event concludes in three short days of play.

The amount of money and exposure at stake is just enough to get both pros and celebrities out of the house, but not quite enough for either group to truly care about being there. At various points on day one, I heard Danny Alaei, Mimi Rogers and Meat Loaf express a desire to bust out and go home.

The mix of players at my starting table was representative of the mix in the room: besides Alaei and me, I recognized David Singer from the "pro" camp. On the celebrity end, the 3-seat was filled by the recognizable Tom Everett Scott, whose most impressive credit to me was actually a 3rd-place finish in the 2005 Invitational. In the seven seat was Gil Cates, Jr., the director of a forthcoming poker-themed movie called Deal.

On my direct left was Vince Lozano, a gruff-looking character actor who told us about a part he had in the Pirates of the Caribbean. To my direct right was a young, British-born Indian actor named Kunal Nayyar, who had come to LA recently from Philadelphia and scored a major role on the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory. He was the exact opposite of the jaded Hollywood actor stereotype--visibly thrilled to be in the event and awed to be in the presence of an accomplished actor like James Woods, who sat one table over.

Everyone was very nice and friendly, and it was a decent change of pace from normal poker tournaments. Like most poker tournaments, Jennifer Tilly was basically the biggest star in the room.

Meat Loaf took Lozano's seat after he busted. I wasn't sure it was him at first, but he quickly introduced himself as "Meat Loaf," to which Kunal lit up and said, "wow, Meat Loaf? I'm a big fan!"

"Yes," I added, "you were great in Fight Club!"

"Thank you," Meat Loaf replied, sounding proud. Soon after that, he got all his money in with queen-high (postflop) and got his wish to go home.

Needless to say, the overall quality of play was hilariously bad. Because of that, and my seeming ability to flop a flush and bust someone every time I was dealt two suited cards, I ended the day with 191K chips and the chiplead. Play ended for the night, and I waited in a long, slow line at the valet window behind Jeremy Sisto, who drove away in a Prius.

***

Day one ended around 1:15AM and day two started on Sunday at 2PM. There were about 11 tables left in the tournament and the blinds were 1k/2k with a 300 ante. Kenny Tran's hefty bag of chips were resting two spots to my right, but Kenny hadn't shown up yet. In the 4-seat was the actress Gina Hecht, whose admittedly absurd-sounding charity was devoted to making sure that super-intelligent high school kids avoid "falling through the cracks" and to helping them make the transition into life as happy, well-balanced college students at Caltech.

Other than that, I didn't recognize anyone at my new table except for Phil Laak in the 6-seat. For my non-poker audience, I should explain that Laak's win in this same event in 2004 became the springboard for a strangely prolific career in poker, unique for having been built around his gift-of-gab, his theatrics at the table and a reputation as a cash game player, as opposed to a string of tournament results, the normal route to poker fame.

Before the poker boom hit, he was a legend of sorts in the NYC poker clubs, and stories of his exploits still lingered by the time I had arrived on the scene, which was after Phil had moved to California to become a serious poker pro. Phil was one of the first real "stars" to emerge after televised poker hit the Travel Channel, and he has managed to maintain that status ever since. At Commerce, he is sort of a celebrity to the celebrities, not to mention the longtime boyfriend of Jennifer Tilly.

David Singer showed up at the table and took the 2-seat, while I was in the 1-seat. It didn't take long before he started grumbling about something and a quasi-controversy was developing. Singer, looking in Laak's direction, muttered semi-audibly, "I can't believe they actually did it. They let you in. I should know to expect this by now, but I still can't believe it." I quickly pieced together what Singer's beef was: the day before, Laak was playing in the NBC Headsup Championship at Caesars in Las Vegas (where he actually defeated Singer in an early round). Laak hadn't played day one of the Celebrity Invitational at all, but yet, there he was, with chips in his hand.

Again by way of explanation to my non-poker audience, Laak's presence on day two was unorthodox to say the least. Under normal circumstances, an absent player would have been eliminated on day one by the process of having his stack eaten away by increasing blinds and antes; entering a tournament on day two is simply not an option that is ever given to players.

I've played with Singer on a handful of occasions, and I knew he wasn't going to let this go quietly. Singer can reasonably be described as either a "watchdog" or a "rules nit," depending on your definition of each term and your disposition towards David Singer. In any case, he is steadfastly attuned to lapses in proper procedure and game integrity that arise fairly frequently during a poker tournament. It is hard to spend any significant time at the table with Singer and not witness him correct the dealer on a technicality or hear him issue a complaint about a casino's procedure.

To his detriment, he has been known to take up the right cause either at the wrong time or seemingly for the wrong reason. During the 2007 World Series of Poker Main Event, Singer was involved in a controversial elimination hand, in which his opponent touched his cellphone in the middle of the play of a hand. Mid-hand cellphone interaction had been punishable by having your hand "declared dead" in every preliminary event at last year's WSOP. Everyone who had been playing those events for the five weeks prior had been subject to the inane regulation.

However, in this case, the dealer either was unaware or unwilling to enforce the rule. The man's hand remained live and he eliminated Singer, who took up the case publicly, making a stink and seeking, unsuccessfully, a refund for the event. Rather than fighting for the principle of having the rules properly and evenly enforced (or the even more high-minded issue of not having dumb-ass cellphone rules at the WSOP to begin with), Singer came off as a sore loser, who seemed only interested in the principle because it happened to have cost him the hand and the tournament.

People like Singer are a rarity in poker, and I mostly appreciate it that he opens his mouth in those instances when he is ensuring that the game is being played evenly and fairly.

In this case, I think it's completely improper for Phil to have been allowed to play the tournament, and I'm grateful that Singer was not only aware of it, but willing to bring it up and force Laak to confront the issue, without which I would have remained ignorant to what was going on.

For Phil's part, I think he handled Singer's pressure pretty well, although Laak's presence at the table was ultimately inexcusable. "Look," he paused and told Singer, "they put me in late." When Singer mocked this assertion, noting that the cost-per-round at the end of day one was 3800 in chips and that Laak was sitting on 8K of our original 10K stack, Phil re-iterated, "Hey man, I don't know what to tell you, they put me in late," acknowledging David's beef, but remaining confident in his presence there.

Singer kept the heat on, bringing BJ Nemeth over to facetiously quiz the tournament reporter on the math behind Phil's magical stack. Realizing the potential for the situation to get even more awkward (this was still the first orbit of play on day two), I said, "look, David, 'late' in this case clearly means two or three hands before the night ended. Either bring it up with the tournament director or let it slide."

Sure enough, Singer approached a TD and, after coming back with some sort of vague or unsatisfying response, resumed his complaining about the situation by needling Laak more.

Phil said, "it's all going to charity in any case, but, hey, if you want me to leave this tournament at any point from now until the future, I will." With that, some of the tension at the table dissipated, and we discussed Phil's charity, and Singer said that he would not mention it again and not insist that Phil leave. Of course, it wasn't the last mention of the incident, and some amount of collective pressure remained present at the table until Laak eventually busted, not before sucking out on an opponent with 88 vs QQ and making a pretty decent run with his short stack.

For all intents and purposes, and despite the fact that I think Laak is a charismatic, likeable guy, his presence at the event was inappropriate, and I think he should have not accepted the invitation, even if the people who run the Commerce tournaments and/or the WPT were insane and corrupt enough to extend it to him. Phil should have resisted the impulse to play, for no other reason than to avoid the appearance of impropriety.

The rationale that any money he won would go to charity, thus apparently making his participation OK, is inadequate to me, because I, like some of the pros in attendance, consider the tournament to contain some tangible, financial value (the ability to play against weaker opponents for $100,000 with no direct entry fee)--one of the few bonuses a non-superstar poker professional is fortunate enough to enjoy once a year. It's obviously unsettling that the Commerce and/or WPT was willing to let a player unfairly compete for that value just because he is famous and well-liked, and it represents the opposite of the egalitarian spirit that a poker tournament is supposed to embody.

There was a similarly troubling tendency among other pros during the tournament to bend rules and do mildly, sometimes explicitly, inappropriate shit in the name of its being a "fun, celebrity freeroll event." In my mind, this type of thing shouldn't go on, either, and professional players should be setting an example to their amateur counterparts about the correct way to behave in a tournament, not debasing the proceedings. I think that is a topic for another time, though.

***

Phil Laak busted, and I kept accumulating chips. I managed to bust Kenny Tran and Hoyt Corkins and the actor Billy Burke on my way to an extremely annoying 13th place finish later that evening, seven spots out of the money.

My last hand was a 500K pot (with blinds at 8k/16K) that I played with AKs vs the 77 of Debby Perkins, who split 6th-place money and received $2,500 by busting out on the last hand of the night. The last celebrity standing was Tom McGowan, on whose behalf $10,000 was donated to LA Children's Hospital. Van Nguyen, Men "The Master" Nguyen's wife, won the event, taking down $100,000 plus a seat into the $25K event.