January 25th, 2005

David Bianculli
New York Daily News

CELEBRITY POKER SHOWDOWN. Tonight at 8, Bravo.
Last year on HBO, Bill Maher joked that anyone who watched other people playing cards on television was in dire need of either a life or a drinking problem.

For me, though, Bravo's "Celebrity Poker Showdown" is its own brand of addiction - and one of the more effortlessly watchable shows on TV.

The series opens its fifth season tonight. In each two-hour show, five celebrities sit around a gaming table at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas and play No Limit Texas Hold-'Em for charity. A winner is crowned each week for five weeks, after which the victors square off for a championship round.

What could be simpler? Or, as described, duller?

Three elements make "Celebrity Poker Showdown" so much fun. One is the placement of the in-table lipstick cameras, which permits viewers at home to peer at the hidden hole cards of each player. Another is co-host Phil Gordon, the poker expert who, with comic Dave Foley, provides running commentary and chip count as play proceeds.

The third element, though, is the true secret ingredient. This is one of the only shows on television on which celebrities can be seen unadorned and unprepared.

They're not promoting any project or working from any pre-interview outline - and eventually, as they fold and raise and joke and banter, playing the crowd as well as the cards, their true personalities emerge.

Tonight's opener features Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, fresh from ankle surgery and entering by wheelchair; Ray Romano and Brad Garrett of "Everybody Loves Raymond," who bait Schilling by sharing and wearing a New York Yankees cap, and two comic ladies, Catherine O'Hara of "SCTV" and Sara Rue of "Less Than Perfect."

Okay, so it's no Algonquin Round Table. But it's lots of fun, and tonight's show demonstrates perfectly the unpredictability of both poker and the players. All five take a turn as chip leader, and there are some runs of luck that have the crowd, and even Gordon, screaming in disbelief. One player wins two hands in a row, snatching victory from the jaws of defeat on the final (river) card and beating odds estimated by Gordon as "200 to 1 on both hands."

In addition to the poker, there's the banter.

"Who carried you for nine years?" Garrett asks Romano, one of a series of caustic one-liners aimed at all the other players.

"If I knew you were this funny," Romano says to Garrett, "I'd give you more lines on the show."

When Romano wins a big hand, he charges the front row of onlookers like a football player after a touchdown. When he loses one, he shuffles over slowly and bows his head, receiving sympathetic pats from several attractive female fans.

Rue plays it close to the vest, comically and strategically. O'Hara plays with giddy enthusiasm. And Schilling, who admits to playing Texas Hold-'Em exclusively on team flights, absorbs the anti-Red Sox jibes while seeking and finding the revealing "tells" of his fellow players.

"Celebrity Poker Showdown," as an entertaining television series, is the real deal.