The World Poker Tour Celebrity Invitational – Part I

One of the perks of being the in-studio announcer for the World Poker Tour is getting to play in the WPT Celebrity Invitational each year at Commerce Casino. This is the only WPT event that I am able to play in, and I look forward to it with great anticipation.

I received favorable comments from a recent column in which Adam Shrager detailed his experience of playing in a WPT event, so I decided prior to the Invitational to take notes and write about my tournament play. This has turned into a three-part series, which I hope you will enjoy.

There was a lot of excitement in the air as hundreds of players and "Hollywood celebrities" showed up to play in the WPT Invitational event. I felt quite "out of it," since I recognized very few of approximately 60 television/movie stars who showed up to "be seen" and play some poker. In fact, the only stars I recognized were Ed Asner, James Woods, and Ben Affleck … talk about feeling old!

Commerce Casino put on a terrific spread of food prior to the tournament and organized a very nice party for the players and celebrities. It was cool to see the Hollywood stars so enamored with poker players; in fact, many of the poker players were asked for autographs by the invited television/movie stars. WPT CEO Steve Lipscomb greeted everyone, and the tournament began.