Annie Duke on The Celebrity Apprentice

Annie Duke is one of the 16 stars on The Celebrity Apprentice, along with LPGA star Natalie Gulbis, Playboy Playmate Brande Roderick, comedian Andrew Dice Clay, R&B star Brian McKnight, country music star Clint Black, model Claudia Jordan, former football star Herschel Walker, TV star Jesse James, Joan Rivers, TV hostess Melissa Rivers (Joan’s daughter), Khloe Kardashian, figure-skating champion Scott Hamilton, comedian Tom Green, R&B star Tionne Watkins, and Dennis Rodman. The Celebrity Apprentice airs on Sunday nights on NBC, and my 15-year-old son and I watched the first two-hour show and loved it. I have never watched any of The Apprentice shows before, and I was surprised that not only could I sit through the two-hour show, I really enjoyed it.

The “task” for the first episode was to bake and sell cupcakes, and the teams were the guys versus the girls. It was cool to watch the celebs scramble around baking cupcakes, decorating a van to sell them from, and then hitting the streets of New York City to sell their product. The girls won the task, and Annie kicked some butt, although not everybody on her team appreciated her direct style. In the boardroom, Donald Trump said, “Of course Annie is direct; she has been beating men out of tons of money at the poker table, some of them my friends, for many years. This woman gets the job done.” I believe that Duke will have a great chance to win, but she needs to look out for James, Green, and Rodman.

In February, the tournament circuit was in L.A. for the L.A. Poker Classic, a World Poker Tour event, at Commerce Casino. Annie made it to day two, and when I asked her to give me a hand for my column, she did so.

Here is Duke’s hand, in her own words: “With the blinds at 300-600, and a 50 ante per player, everyone folded around to a solid player — who was a little bit creative — in the cutoff (one position away from the button), and he opened for 1,700. On the button, Freddy Bonyadi called, and the kid in the small blind called, as well. The flop came down J 4 3, the player in the cutoff bet 2,700, and Freddy slowly called. Then, the kid quickly called, and the player in the cutoff had a look on his face of, ‘Are you kidding me? I cannot believe that they both called.’ The turn was the A, the kid checked, the player in the cutoff checked, and Freddy bet roughly 7,200. The kid quickly called again; the cutoff had the same ‘Are you kidding me?’ look on his face, and folded. The river was the 4, and the kid checked; Freddy looked down at his stack of chips, then looked at the pot, then looked back down at his stack, and finally said, ‘I’m all in.’ The kid insta-mucked his A-J faceup!

“I hate the kid’s fold here, especially because he folded so quickly. I believe that you have a choice in this hand; either you move all in on the turn or you smooth-call to set up a big bluff from Freddy. As to the move-in: If the kid thought that Freddy had, say, the K J, or another drawing hand of some sort, why not move all in on the turn? Why let a scare card pop off — there are too many of them — like a spade, a diamond, a king, or a queen, if you’re going to fold your hand when it hits? But if you do opt to smooth-call on the turn, call no matter what card hits on the river. As to the speed of the fold: Why not give yourself a chance to study Freddy? You never know when you may pick something up on him, like a tell of strength or a tell of weakness.

“On top of his other mistakes in this hand, why did the kid show his hand faceup? Do not show that hand! I mean, if you take a long time, it’s OK, as you’re setting up the table for later on. But do not show a snap-fold, because then the rest of the players at the table will try to run you over (bluff you) later. Inducing the other players into trying to bluff you is OK if you always have the best hand, but in hold’em, you don’t always have the best hand! By showing that snap-fold, the kid was setting himself up to have massive heat put on him the rest of the day.

“By the way, Freddy said in a deadpan way, ‘I guess that’s why I don’t win anymore; I don’t know how to make that fold.’ And then he winked and said, ‘Wow.’”

Learn more about Phil by going to his website, www.PhilHellmuth.com, and visit his webstore at www.PokerBrat.com.