Poker: Celebrity Poker Showdown
Game #2.5 -- Retro Trip

Is it here already?

Yes, boys and girls, next week will be the championship table of the second tournament of Bravo's "Celebrity Poker Showdown," meaning it's back with the Card Rack 2.0, the Devil-slayer and the others who scrapped their way to glory. The only thing left to decide was who won the final seat at the table.

Exactly like the World Poker Tour, going into this week, there was only one seat remaining, and it'd be filled by tennis pro James Blake.

Or maybe funnyman Andy Richter.

Or Tom Everett Scott, the guy I did a really bad impression of when I visited a shooting location from That Thing You Do! last year. (Sorry, Tom.)

Or maybe host Dave Foley's old friend, Maura Tierney.

Or maybe it'd even be my favorite director of all-time and one of my professional heroes, Jon Favreau.

Fittingly, this final game before the end of tournament two was not only the one with the most potential, it was also the best of the games to date. That's what happens when you mix people with personalities and pasts and throw fake money in front of them in a competitive setting.

That, and you could pretty much bet on drunken Dave making "NewsRadio" jokes, Andy being damn funny, and maybe a "Swingers" reference or two.

Personally, it was a no-doubter that I was pulling for Jon, who I've been a fan of his since he wrote and starred in "Swingers" in 1996 (after I stumbled on it watching too many Vince Vaughn films), and since then have followed his career steadily. One of my career goals is to appear on his series "Dinner For Five," and in the little universe in my head, he even directed my first film.

Three years ago, when I was directing the tricky animated feature "Looking For Andrew McCarthy" and he was wrapping "Made," he even gave me a really good piece of advice, so I kind of owe him one.

Unfortunately -- or maybe fortunately -- I couldn't play the tournament for him. But "Favz," as we call him, is a solid poker player with a very intent focus, so I didn't worry that much. Still, this is one tournament where I figured whoever won would earn it (unlike Game 2.1, for example).

So who did win it?

Well, we'd have to go through the four people who didn't win it first.

Andy was the first casualty, choosing strangely to match 8-6 against Jon's A-8. I'm still not sure why he did it, but I was holding my tongue until an ace came on the turn, and then I broke out the "Swingers" quips as Andy got kicked with a board of 2-Q-7-A-Q. I think it's the first time I've had legitimate reason to ever say the line "You are so money and you don't even know it," and to the man who wrote it, of all people.

Following Andy down would be Tom, who would be doing his thing he does in the Losers' Lounge after matching his Q-5 with Maura's K-10. She flopped a pair of kings and he flopped a pair of 5's, virtually ensuring he'd head for disaster. The board went 5-6-K-J-2 and after forty-five minutes of annoying Phil and Dave, Andy now had somebody else to chat with.

I was starting to think Jon had a chance to win this thing. He'd gone from short stack to force, and I noted with some irony that in the "CPS" tournament in my head, if he won, that would mean he and I would face each other in the final table. He had to get there first, though...

... And breaking the heart of myself and "Swingers" fans everywhere (and they are legion), he didn't.

It was goodnight for Favz as he pitted his K-J against James's pocket kings. With the king no help, Favreau needed trip jacks or a straight, and it did look bleak. The deal went 4-A-4-6, and then just to add insult to injury, the final king turned up on the river. As in "Swingers," the cards just weren't on Favreau's side.

That left it down to James and Maura, of all people. Astutely, James commented that they were the last two people anyone would ever expect to be still standing at this table. Yet, they'd swapped the chip lead back and forth all game, and at one point were dead even in chips, so they'd certainly not needed any life support.

To quote Phil, though, "If you're looking at the clock on the wall, you know it's time for one of them to win this thing."

Which, of course, was when James's cell phone promptly went off.

If you remember Game 2.2, the same thing happened to James Woods. Blake, however, did him one better and actually handed the phone to Maura Tierney. With a perfectly straight face, she answered it: "Welcome to Celebrity Poker Showdown ... No, this is James's phone, this isn't James ... He's very busy right now."

I knew there was a reason I liked her on "NewsRadio."

And completely surprisingly -- even to herself -- Maura soon carried the day. It was basically a coin flip, her J-Q against James's Q-10, and fittingly, after 6-5-K-4, it came down to the river.

It was a jack, and Maura assured herself a spot in the Tournament Two championship game. She had most definitely earned it, despite the fact that her fake boyfriend (for those people who don't remember, she played Dave Foley's girlfriend on "NewsRadio") really, honestly appeared to be horribly drunk, which worries me. But Maura's victory assures a table with the majority of women, as she joins Lauren Graham and Rosario Dawson.

Don't count out the men, though, for they are the cunning Michael Ian Black and the Card Rack 2.0, Dule Hill.

Join me next week for a recap of this sure-to-be-insane Tournament Two final table, followed in two weeks by the first game of Tournament Three. And no matter how drunk he was, Dave did have one good point.

Whoever said it's not if you win or lose wasn't talking about poker.