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A British poker and gambling desk since 2005.

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Legends

Celebrity Poker Players

All The Aces Poker Column: CELEBRITY POKER PLAYERS. Celebrity poker players like Ben Affleck, Matt Damon and Toby "Spiderman" McGuire can usually command upwards of ten to fifteen million dollars a picture, so why arethey so keen on poker

The All The Aces deskLegends

18+ onlyWritten, edited and fact-checked by the All The Aces desk in Britain — how we work and how we correct mistakes. Some links out are paid placements; they are not reviews, and nobody pays for coverage. Gambling in the UK is licensed by the Gambling Commission, and nothing here is advice to bet.

Celebrity poker players like Ben Affleck, Matt Damon and Toby "Spiderman" McGuire can usually command upwards of ten to fifteen million dollars a picture, so it takes a pot like the $7,000,000 on offer at the World Series of Poker to really attract their interest.

Of the top celebrity poker players, Ben Affeck is a natural, having won the California State Poker Championship in 2004 and a cool $350,000 in prize money. Apparently, he is notorious for his aggressive betting style. Its not just the power of his purse that enables Affleck to buy pots. According to Hollywood actor-buddy James Woods, Ben's a fast and mean mathematician.
Spiderman himself is no slouch, having trousered almost $100,000 by winning poker legend Phil Helmuth's Invitational No Limt Hold 'Em Championship last October. He also snapped up another $50,000 at the Doyle Brunson North American Championship by coming in a cool fourth. Maybe opponents were distracted by the red lurex body-stocking or maybe Toby just has what it takes.
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Fellow actor Matt Damon actually went head-to-head with Doyle Brunson, poker's most respected elder statesman, only to find his pair of kings trounced by Doyle's aces. Oscar nominated James Woods only took up poker about eighteen months ago and will tell anyone prepared to listen that he logs on usually every day and usually wins $500 per day. Poker is now blowing through the film community along with Arnie's cigar smoke in terms of popularity. Big stars like 'George' from Seinfeld, Carrie "Star Wars" Fisher, Chevy Chase, Matthew "Friends" Perry and Robert Downey Jnr are leading a charge which includes just about everyone from CP30 to Leonardo Di Caprio. You're in good celebrity company with your newly acquired interest in poker. Of course, if you can spin a web out of some part of your anatomy Toby McGuire's job may be up for grabs and the odds on that being rewarding won't even be a gamble.
TODAY'S POKER TIP
When is the best time to bluff? If you're the dealer. Think about it. THe dealer gets to bet last. Watch what the others do. Calling, checking and folding from your opponents is your signal to attempt to buy the pot. Don't bluff early on. Wait until hands have developed.
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Why the column kept writing about actors. In 2005 the celebrity angle was not a diversion from poker coverage; for a newspaper it was the way in. Readers who would not have opened a piece about pot odds would read about a film star losing to Doyle Brunson, and having read it would come back for the pot odds a week later. The pieces that look like gossip now were doing recruiting work then.

What the stories underneath that angle actually show is more useful than the names. Every one of them describes an amateur with plenty of money sitting down against professionals with less, and the money not helping. Aggression without position, a big purse used to buy pots, a strong hand played as though it could not be beaten — the mistakes are the ones any player at any stake makes, which is precisely why they were worth printing. The lesson in the Matt Damon hand is not that kings lose to aces. It is that a player who cannot imagine being behind will pay the maximum to find out he is.

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