Last week on NBC’s Celebrity Apprentice, Ultimate Bet pro and Poker News Daily columnist Annie Duke stepped up to be Project Manager on a task that challenged the teams to sell Ivanka Trump’s jewelry for charity. Duke’s competition knew they needed to be creative to raise more money than the World Series of Poker champion and may even enlist the aid of her archrival, Phil Hellmuth. Duke sat down with Poker News Daily to talk about the cliffhanger, which will resume this Sunday at 9:00pm ET on NBC.
PND: Ivanka Trump called you out in the boardroom for not stepping up to be Project Manager. What was your reaction to her comments?
Duke: I agreed with her. I had been waiting until the next fundraising challenge to be Project Manager and it turned out that there was a considerable amount of time before the next one occurred. I knew I wouldn’t be able to avoid being Project Manager on the next challenge regardless of what it was. I got very lucky that it happened to be about raising money. There is short-term luck in any type of game.
PND: Your opponents have been creative, going so far as potentially enlisting the help of Phil Hellmuth this week. Is that flattering that they think you’re such a threat?
Duke: They view me as a threat in that type of challenge because on the previous two fundraising tasks, I had raised the most money. They definitely see that me being on the opposing team is a problem. They have a double problem, though, because the other strong fundraiser is Brande Roderick and we’re sitting on the same team. Obviously, the preview for next week doesn’t show how it goes with Phil. A little research would have let them know that Phil is one of my close friends. There are people who would have been better choices, but interestingly enough, but I don’t think some of them would go against their own. People thought it’d be better to call a guy like Daniel Negreanu, but I don’t think Daniel would do that.
PND: One of your teammates, Jesse James, stated in a private interview that he was holding back his contacts for a task that he was Project Manager of. Did that surprise you?
Duke: I didn’t know about that comment at the time. I didn’t hold a tremendous amount back regardless of who was Project Manager. During the wedding dress challenge, I raised $35,000 and didn’t need to raise that amount to be safe. I was on the show to raise money for charity, so I didn’t want to hold back. I didn’t consider my charity to be more important than anyone else’s.
I wanted to be Project Manager on a fundraising task not to make money for my charity, but rather because it was the safest task to be the leader. If it’s true that Jesse had resources and we lose, then his neck is on the line. The only issue is that, strategically, even if you feel you are safe, you have to make an argument to be in the final two on the show. If Donald Trump thinks you’re a poor fundraiser, it will be hard to make it.
PND: You called Perry Friedman for this task to bid on an item of jewelry. He also paid $10,000 for a wedding dress in a previous episode. What’s your relationship with him?
I’ve known Perry forever. We’ve been really good friends for a long time. I’m friends with all of the Tiltboys, but have known Perry for a very long time. I also know Rafe Furst, Phil Gordon, and Andy Bloch really well.
PND: Had you thought about contacting Phil Hellmuth for the task to bid on an item?
Duke: I did talk to Phil, but he had just had a baby, so it was hard for him to show up. In this task, people could bid over the phone, but the only person who did that was my brother.
PND: We’d be amiss if we didn’t ask you about your feud with Joan Rivers and Melissa Rivers. You saw it unfold last week. What were your thoughts?
Duke: I was pretty shocked with Melissa. The comments she was making starting two weeks ago behind my back weren’t nice. They’re off base. I’m pretty self-aware of what my faults are. She kept talking about me taking over the room, but since Week 2, I have been sitting in the background. Clearly, she doesn’t want to be on the chopping block. As you get down to fewer and fewer people remaining, there is definitely a hierarchy of who’s going to go. She sees me as her biggest threat, so she keeps saying bad things about me.
You heard Trump describe Melissa as “bratty” to Piers Morgan. The thing that upset me with Melissa this week was her comments about Brande. Back in Week 4, I felt like Claudia had stepped out of line in her commentary towards Melissa. I find it ironic that Melissa is acting that way now towards Brande. She kept saying I was two-faced for praising Brande. Whatever Brande has done in the past is irrelevant to her performance on the present task. If she’s doing well, as a boss, I am going to compliment her and encourage her because it helps the team.
PND: Do you see any similarities between yourself and Piers Morgan, who won the first season of Celebrity Apprentice?
Duke: I deeply respected Piers and liked him a lot. What I thought was interesting was that for everyone saying he was mean, I never heard him say anything bad about anyone. He was direct, he was confident, and he knew he was very smart. He was always a gentleman. There are some parallels there. For some of the reasons he rubs people the wrong way, I rub people the wrong way. There are a lot of people out there who would rather have people be nice to their face regardless of what they say behind their back. I’d rather you tell me to my face. Brande confronted me to my face and that’s what I liked a lot about her. Piers also approached the game very strategically and not as anything personal. He approached it as a game and that’s similar to me.
PND: You had dinner with Joan Rivers in which you talked about Brande Roderick. Joan claimed you called the former Playboy Playmate “stupid.” What was actually said?
Duke: What I said was that I felt like Brande was drafting and should be the next one fired assuming there was a reason to. I said she had to go and she was dragging the team down. Joan, because everything is personal to her, interpreted that as me saying Brande was an idiot, which wasn’t what I said.
I have a lot of opportunities to say how I feel in private interviews. If the Celebrity Apprentice had any footage of me saying that Brande is an idiot, they would have used it. The fact that they didn’t have any footage of it obviously means I never said it. I’m sorry Joan interpreted anything I said as meaning Brande’s an idiot. I find it interesting that Joan didn’t understand how harsh my criticism of Brande was. I find it interesting that she was upset because I wasn’t mean enough. Her own daughter didn’t criticize Brande heavily enough. What I said about Brande was so much more detailed and harsher than what her own daughter said.
PND: After being laid back during the Lifelock task, Brande took note of everyone’s criticisms and has come back strong during this episode. Talk about her transformation.
Duke: Poker players should take note of what Brande did. The contrast between Brande and Melissa is important for people to understand the problem of tilting. Brande didn’t tilt because of the comments I made. She listened to them, decided that I was right, updated her strategy, and I gave her some table talk. If people are willing to listen in an unemotional way to table talk, it’s helpful. Melissa, contrastingly, went totally on tilt. She is starting to disintegrate. She was confrontational to George Ross in the boardroom and she is obviously not doing herself any favors with Brande or me, which is bad because there are only four people left on the team. This is all from her acting with her emotional brain. Instead of trying to solve the problem as Brande did, she is just flailing about in a way that is damaging her chances of winning.