Celebrity participation brings poker upscale
By Susan Young, STAFF WRITER

MIMI Rogers looks more like a housewife than a Hollywood actress as she walks into San Jose's Bay 101 card room in her jeans and ribbed striped sweater.

Rogers ("Lost in Space" movie) casually places the pictures of her children -- Lucy, 8, and Charlie, 2 -- down beside her as she begins to play Texas Hold'em. She's here for the Travel Channel's "World Poker Tour" tournament with a $5,000 buy in and the potential to win more than

$100,000 as a finalist.

Rogers, my friends, is just edging past actress status and into card shark country. At a table near her, actor James Woods ("True Crime," "Casino") regales his fellow card players with stories about the Oscars, which he attended recently with his pal Clint Eastwood.

And at a third table, actor/director/producer Jon Favreau ("Something's Gotta Give," "Elf") hunkers down to play against some of the best poker players in the world.

Reading people, bluffing your way through bad situations, taking risks. Everything you need to know to get along in life you can learn through poker. Which may be one reason why poker has become the hot new sport of the 21st century and the current fad of Hollywood celebrities.

Rogers says she started playing poker at celebrity charity fundraisers, but it quickly became a passion for her.

"I raised money for charity, which was good," Rogers says. "I have played cards for a long time but didn't realize I was good at it until I started playing in these poker tournaments. It's fun playing for yourself sometimes, too."

Woods says as a director, he has to be good at reading people and situations -- skills that aid him tremendously in poker.

"And math is my thing," says Woods, who went to school at MIT and scored almost a perfect math SAT score. "Besides, we actors love exciting and dramatic things, and poker is perfect for that."

Favreau says the top three Hollywood celebrities who are really good poker players right now are Tobey Maguire, Ron Livingston ("Sex and the City," "Band of Brothers") and Ben Affleck. He says one 1970s comic actor is now considered a top poker player.

"Gabe Kaplan ('Welcome Back, Kotter') is so good that when he comes to the table, no one thinks of him as an actor," Favreau says. "He's a pro."

This is the second season for the "World Poker Tour," which travels around the country filming the show for the Travel Channel. The cable show employs camera shots to peek at the players' cards, discusses strategies with professionals, and offers commentary on the play.

Now even amateurs can know a flop from a river.

Television shows such as "World Poker Tour," which airs Wednesdays, have been increasing in popularity, and celebrity players from Leonardo di Caprio to David Schwimmer have moved a once-seedy pastime into the mainstream.

"I've been a professional poker player for 10 years," says Annie Duke, who holds degrees in psychology and English from Columbia University and was pursuing her Ph.D. in psycholinguistics when she began playing poker for a living.

"This is the way that I have paid my mortgage, fed my family and taken care of everybody long before ('WPT') came along and made it easier for me to do so."

Duke says that before then, when she told people she was a professional poker player, she got the occasional "Wow, that's cool." But, she says, she also got "a lot of 'Wow, have you considered Gamblers Anonymous?'"

"Now, people know who I am. I walk into a car dealership, and they're like, 'Yeah, Annie Duke, that's so great.' And I don't have any of that stigma attached to what I do now, and there never should have been. There are people who make a very good living for themselves doing this."

Just ask Antonio Esfandiari, 24, whose family moved from Tehran to the Bay Area when he was in third grade. Esfandiari, a magician, was about ready to toss in his side job as a poker player to enter the California Culinary Academy. Then he began winning big. Just the week before this tournament, he won $1.4 million.

"I'm using the money to finance my dream of owning a restaurant in the Bay Area that has great food and magicians," Esfandiari says.

His father, Bijan, owns Career Dynamics International in Oakland.

"He was not very approving of my career choice in the beginning," says Esfandiari. "But he's OK with it now."

Esfandiari says he plays poker with Hollywood celebrities on a regular basis.

"Actors have money and power, but they need challenges," Esfandiari says. "Poker challenges you on so many levels. You have to keep your mind active to stay in the game."

In the early stages of the three-day tournament, Esfandiari would appear to pay scant attention to the table, chatting while others at his table looked intently at their hands. Some players' strategies include wearing headphones and dark glasses as if they were Tony Soprano's hit men or members of the Secret Service. Others like to chatter about subjects ranging from who has the biggest boat to hands that seemed like sure winners.

"About 80 percent of the cards you get, you toss," Esfandiari says. "You can't talk about your hand, but you can talk during the play. I like to get on people's nerves."

Like trash talking?

"Well," says Esfandiari with a smile, "maybe not exactly trash talking. But anything you can do to shake someone is always good."

Like tossing jabs across the room to other players. Amir Vahedi, who first started playing poker in San Bruno, taught Affleck how to play poker and often coaches the stars. Woods steps away from his game to encourage Vahedi to say what a good player Woods is.

"Yeah, I love James. I love his money in my pocket," jokes Vahedi, who played in a private game with Woods the night before the tournament began Wednesday. "I taught him some acting last night."

Vahedi says part of the excitement for anyone to play poker is the idea that at any given time, an amateur can take a pro.

"You know if you are going to shoot hoops with Michael Jordan, Jordan is always going to win," Vahedi says. "But at any given time, you can be lucky enough to (beat) the best poker player in the world having a bad night."

As proof of that, one of the first players out of the tournament was Chris Ferguson, who looks like Wild Bill Hickock with his long hair and trademark black cowboy hat. In fact, Ferguson has a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence and is the son of a professor of game theory at UCLA.

"It's been fantastic for the game to have celebrities involved, because poker has always had this sort of underworld image," Ferguson says. "Having well-known actors involved in the game raises that image."

In fact, most of the good players have a mind for mathematics and could fit right in with most Silicon Valley nerds.

Such as sweet-faced Daniel Negreanu, the 29-year-old Canadian who, in 1998, became the youngest World Championship event winner in history.

"Danny?" Vahedi asks incredulously when asked how a nice boy like him could fit in with the accepted image of the hard-edged poker player. "He's a shark."

Welcome to the brave new world of poker.

Source: Alameda Times