Poker: Celebrity Poker Showdown
Game #2.4 -- Monty Python's Poker Circus

There are great poker games, great poker games that are fun, and then fun that isn't even a poker game unless you squint really hard and move two inches to the left. Game four of the second "Celebrity Poker Showdown" tournament falls into that last category. Yes, it was fun to watch, but are we socializing or are we playing poker?

Sean Astin, Lauren Graham, Matthew Perry, Chris Masterson (the brother of Game 2.2's Danny Masterson) and Sara Rue were the celebrities taking part in this fracas, but none of them proved to be serious poker players, turning a competition that had been vaguely intense the week before into open-mic night at your local comedy club.

Once again, my pick to win the tournament was short-lived, as Sean was sent packing when he held A-9 against Chris' A-K. The board went 10-3-Q-10-K, and one very smart actor-director was not as smart a poker player. We've pretty much deduced that my favorites never quite get there.

In the melee which followed, we were witness to all of the following:

Matthew Perry's horrible impression of Sean. Thankfully, Sean couldn't hear what he said when he did it.

More sexual innuendoes than an episode of "Sex and the City." When the host's parting line is "Remember to tip your hooker," whatever happened to good, clean fun at the poker table? Kevin Pollak never would've made that joke.

Enough laughing between Lauren and Sara to make up a Hollywood laugh track. So much for serious poker.

Dave Foley's sense of humor completely collapsing. People have stipulated he may be drunk, and this episode didn't make me want to argue with that. See the above hooker line, although he did have the decent "If you climb Phil [Gordon, who stands at 6'9"] you get an excellent view of the Strip."

In fact, this episode was probably 65% talking, 35% poker. It's not as horrible as Game 2.1, but it wasn't exactly Game 2.2 or 2.3, either. In the second season, "Celebrity Poker Showdown" has either been very good or very weird, and welcome to the weird.

Following Sean to the Losers' Lounge (or Learning Lounge, as he rechristened it while he intently started studying the game -- this is why he was my favorite, folks; he actually thinks pretty hard on these things) would be Sara Rue, who held K-Q against Lauren's Q-8. The board went Q-9-8-6-A, giving Lauren two pair and Sara, believing her pair of queens with a high kicker was still good, made the good choice and called -- unfortunately, in poker, good does not always equal victory.

After that, it disintegrated into fits of insanity with random poker in between. Matthew would bow out next, blinded down and holding Q-K against Lauren's pair of queens. The board went 6-7-A-6-10, giving her two pair again, and it was goodbye to the Friend, who'd finally worn out his welcome.

This left giggly, sometimes downright confused ("I bet this many purples," she said at one point -- so highly technical) Lauren Graham against the slightly more skilled, not exactly composed Chris Masterson (he showed up looking like he'd come out of a truck stop). Just a little bit of a far cry from the likes of Howard Lederer and Clonie Gowan.

Lauren's elimination of Sara and Matthew had given her a comfortable chip cushion, though, and Chris never really had much of a chance. He resorted to all-in bluffing, that bane of poker players everywhere, and as the joke goes, that works every time but once.

He held 7-2 against K-Q, and the board went 7-8-K-9-A, persuading him that a pair of sevens might be good enough. The pair of kings ruled the day, however, and Lauren Graham will join Rosario Dawson, Dule Hill and Michael Ian Black at the final table.

Between not particularly solid players (Graham and Dawson) and solid ones (Hill and Black), plus the winner of next week's final game (likely veteran writer-actor-director Jon Favreau, a longtime hero of mine, one hopes), it will be either a table in which skill quickly trumps luck or things become chaos on the felt.

Considering the events of Game 2.4, I wouldn't exactly bet against the latter.