Ultimate Bet’s Annie Duke, fresh off her trip to the annual Aruba Poker Classic, comments on the tournament, the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event final table, and the latest cast list for “Celebrity Apprentice.”
Poker News Daily: You missed most of the Aruba Poker Classic last year to film the NBC reality series “Celebrity Apprentice.” Tell us about your trip this year.
Duke: I went into Aruba and was actually excited about playing. In the first two levels, I had aces seven times, kings twice, and queens twice, and I was out. I’d make a big re-raise and someone with 8-5 would call. That goes to show you when you have hands that good, you’ll end up with a huge stack or be out. I was sad because I was looking forward to playing in that tournament. I don’t think I’ve ever had that good of a run of cards, so I was sad to waste it.
PND: What did you do instead of playing in the Main Event in Aruba?
Duke: I ended up in a lot of meetings. I didn’t get to go out too much. At the opening night party, I’ve always managed to avoid getting thrown into the pool. It usually starts off with Phil Hellmuth offering people money to get thrown in. This year, a couple of UB pros came up to me and said they were going to throw me in the pool. I told them not to and they backed off, except for Joe Sebok, who threw me in. He was the first person to get me in the pool in my clothes in years. By the time the closing party came around, I was sick, so I asked people not to throw me in and they didn’t.
I scheduled one day on the back end of the trip where I knew everyone would be gone. I spent the whole day with my seven year-old and we decided to go tubing. She doesn’t like tubing, so [my boyfriend] Joe and I went and she stayed in the boat. The driver’s goal is to knock you off the tube, but Joe and I were in good shape. Finally, the driver began starting and stopping the boat to create turbulence and then pulled us over it. At that point, the tube was flipping over. Joe’s heel flew into my neck and snapped my head back. There was a progressive event of my lower jaw snapping into my upper jaw. We stopped and there was Annie sobbing in the water. The inside of my throat swelled up like I had a bad case of swollen glands. Joe said his only regret was that he didn’t do it on purpose.
PND: That’s quite a story. I notice you’re not playing in the World Poker Tour’s (WPT) Festa al Lago. Can you talk about the tournament’s extended registration policy, which allows players to buy in until halfway through Day 2?
Duke: It’s excruciating to play with the number of blinds they give you, so you definitely want to show up late. The problem is that I’m not sure you can be better than even equity if you do. The soft players in there – the satellite winners – are not waiting until Day 2 to play. You’re given the choice between saving time and losing equity or torturing yourself and picking up equity. I’m not sure there’s a right answer. I don’t want to miss out on soft money, but it’s hard to sit there and play.
PND: It appears that the cast for the third season of “Celebrity Apprentice” will not include a poker player. Is that a good move by NBC officials?
Duke: In the end, I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t have a poker player. I don’t know that tapping into that community again makes sense from a fundraising standpoint. On fundraising challenges, everyone conceded the fact that whatever team I was on would win. They might think that any poker player might be able to bring that to bear, so I’m not sure that creates any suspense for the show. In the finale, it was like they discounted the fact that I had raised so much more money than Joan Rivers. There wasn’t as much weight to it because people assumed that poker players would come through that way, which is amazing.
PND: The cast includes former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich and “America’s Got Talent” judge Sharon Osbourne. Who’s your horse?
Duke: You have to decide between competence and fame and competence versus who will make for good television. My recollection of Helen Robinson Peete is that she’s smart. On competence, she’d be a good choice. Carol Leifer also seems like she’d be competent. If I had to predict, I’d say that it will be Sharon versus Rod in the finale. I don’t have a lot of interest in watching it, but I might because I have friends who work on the show. I developed some close friendships while filming.
PND: What are your thoughts heading into the WSOP Main Event final table?
Duke: Ivey has about 5% of the chips in play and he’s definitely much better than the average bear, but anyone who gets there is playing well. It’s a weird final table because it’s so top-heavy. When it’s top-heavy, the chip averages and table play get screwed up. You have Darvin Moon and then two others close to him. What people have to remember is that Darvin only has a 30% chance of winning (since he has 30% of the chips in play) if he’s a par player, so 70% of the time, he won’t win.
PND: We understand that you’re going to be doing some radio commentary during the final table. How are you preparing for that?
Duke: In the beginning, I’ll be looking at how people deal with the fact that there’s this monster at the table. It’ll be interesting to see who’s panicking and who’s not. There’s no reason to panic. You have a lot of people with around the same number of chips and they’ll be equally afraid of each other. None of them are true short stacks and any of them can damage any other player besides Darvin. They can play relatively straightforward poker and not short-stack poker, so it’ll be interesting to see who knows that.
PND: Is it fair to draw a comparison to the 2006 WSOP Main Event, when Jamie Gold held a monstrous chip lead over the rest of the table?
Duke: There are definitely some similarities. What you saw is that the people who were patient got rewarded.