Poker is the Center of the Universe

Or at least Planet Hollywood.

And to test this out I emailed Chops and asked him to name an actor, any actor, and I’d try to somehow connect him/her in a six degrees of poker separation kind of way to starlet banger/pro surfer Kelly Slater, who said something recently about, you guessed it, poker.

Chops’ reply:

“Not sure of his name, but howabout the fetus at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey.”

Ok. I guess I’m on my own here.

So let’s go with someone we recently mentioned, Daniel Craig, and link it along the way to some recent “poker” stories we’ve featured here and, of course, go off on tangents as I see fit.

Here we go:

Daniel Craig, who is the new 007, who will be playing Texas Hold em in the new Bond film, was shagging Sienna Miller (seen left in new "Sienna Kills..But Worth Dying For" ad), who was in Layer Cake with him, (which was directed by the guy who produced Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, which centered on a high stakes poker game), was seen hanging with Leonardo DiCaprio, who plays poker and hangs with Doyle Brunson and was dating Gisele, until she got tired of him tossing cards with Spidey and That 70s Show gang and dumped him and is now dating pro surfer, Kelly Slater, who used to live down the beach from me (and I play poker), dated Pamela Anderson (who was married to Tommy Lee, whose former bandmate Vince Neil apparently plays poker) and recently won his seventh ASP Men’s World Tour crown.

And yes, the surfer had this to say afterwards:

"I was pretending I was playing poker and I didn’t want anyone to see my poker face. I was trying to contain the excitement, the nervousness, the anxiety!"

So I’m guessing Slater plays poker, and if so, he may not be keeping the lovely Gisele, who just was on the runway for Victoria’s Secret annual fashion shindig, around for too long. Remember, she hates poker, or so we say.

And speaking of Hollywood, our friends over at HollywoodPoker.com, ‚Äúwhere the stars (allegedly) come to play‚Äù and who we slagged for their mediocre taste in spotting gorgeous women (though kudos for terrorists spotting), hosted the website’s first-anniversary party on November 9 in a town ironically called Hollywood. The party included a silent auction and a special introduction of the . . . drumroll please ‚Ķ 2006 Hollywood Poker calendar girls.

HollywoodPoker.com’s Vince Van Patten commented, "The girls look spectacular."

He said some other things too, I’m sure.

For those who voted back whenever they did the voting for this or want to see if we were wrong in our initial assessment, here’s the 12 who will proudly call themselves the “2006 Hollywood Poker Models”:

Christina Hall (Reno, NV), Amber Marie Mekush (Los Angeles, CA), Ashley Dorenzo (Detroit, MI), Mercedes Terrell (Fullerton, CA), Leslie Gomez (Fontana, CA), Erin Muller (Fort Lauderdale, CA), Heidi Blair (Los Angeles, CA), Mary Castro (Downey, CA), Melany Lorenzo (San Diego, CA), Meriah Nelson (Los Angeles, CA), Misty Woods (Houston, TX) and Christine Nguyen (Los Angeles, CA).

By the way, the girls were all photographed by John Russo, a celebrity photographer who has snapped pics of Eva Longoria and Pamela Anderson, which makes me wonder why Las Vegas Vegas Vegas Vegas’s master photog Flip Chip spends all his time pointing that camera thingamagig at smelly old men sitting around a table and not " Desperate Housewives" and those of the " Stacked" kind.

One more Hollywood thing, apparently Phil Gordon is bailing on Celebrity Poker Showdown, so says Oddjack, peeps at Blind Bet Poker, and Poker News Daily.

:: snake