Poker: Celebrity Poker Showdown
Game #2.2 -- The card rack rises again

The Card Rack is back, baby!

For those of you who don't know why I'm in such a good mood, let's take a quick trip down memory lane to Tournament One of Bravo's "Celebrity Poker Showdown." In Game 4, the always very cool Paul Rudd faced off against the likes of Coolio, Sarah Silverman, and the darling Ron Livingston -- and tore them all into little tiny pieces. Paul was like a house on fire, catching card after card, and nothing could slow him down. Embittered after his knockout, Coolio uttered the now-immortalized phrase: "He's like a card rack or something."

Although Paul isn't playing in Tournament Two, the Card Rack has come back, and his name is Dule Hill.

Last week, I called Dule outright as the winner of the second game of Tournament Two, thinking his quiet intelligence so openly displayed on "The West Wing" would parlay well into some poker cunning. I thought I had a good chance of being right. I didn't think I was going to be this right. And yet, here I am, having just cheered at the top of my lungs while still in a state called denial.

How did this happen, you might ask? How did a young up-and-comer who'd only been playing poker for two weeks brutalize the likes of veterans James Woods, Danny Masterson, Mo Gaffney, and even his co-worker Timothy Busfield? That's like saying "How the hell did Brian Lawrence hit a home run?" -- you don't expect it to happen, but when it does, you know it's time to reevaluate your preconceptions.

From the start, these players came out swinging. Mo and Timothy were both returning players from Tournament One, and James Woods had just played solidly at the World Poker Tour Invitational (an event in which, interestingly, "CPS" co-host Dave Foley was the last celebrity to be eliminated). In fact, the early odds looked to be against Dule, who rightly labeled himself "the dark horse."

That label lasted about 2.6 seconds.

Dule seemed to catch a pair on every flop, be dealt incredible hole cards, and even caught a river or two in the most improbable of places, setting a new record for number of shots of Phil and Dave looking absolutely mind-blown in two hours. By the first hour he had crippled just about everyone at the table, holding some 33,300 chips - over half the table -- to second-place Danny's 9,700.

Mo had even started the crowd in chanting his name (although, considering she was supposed to be trying to beat him, I don't know why she would), turning "Celebrity Poker Showdown" into "The Dule Hill Show." But as we all know, poker fortunes can change in a heartbeat.

Like that of Mo, who became a loser for the second time in two tournaments in a crazy hand. She held a pair of queens and rightly decided to bank it all, and Dule insanely called holding only 6-5. This is where I was screaming "Why?" exasperatedly at the television. She was a clear favorite. What was he thinking? He was going to lose, wasn't he?

Except the deal went 2-3-5-4-9 and made Dule a miracle straight, leaving an astonished Mo to go to the Losers' Lounge and try to seek solace in the deadpan comedy of Dave.

The next to go was hard-luck Tim Busfield, who'd been doing a Jerome Bettis act and hanging on life support for some time before he matched his A-3 against Dule's J-9. The flop went 7-J-6, but the turn was an ace, making it look like Tim might actually survive. Then just to add insult to injury, a jack came on the river and sent Tim sputtering backstage for the second tournament in a row.

There was a brief hilarious interlude where James' cell phone actually rang and he had to quickly take the call on national TV. You won't see that on the World Poker Tour!

Now Dule had a whole side of the table to himself, and plenty of chips to cover it. Danny and James, meanwhile, were left to battle it out between themselves. Danny pitted his pair of 4's against James' A-9. The low pair looked shaky, but it went 2-Q-J-7-K, and James Woods was kicked out to go make his cell phone calls from the Losers' Lounge.

He, like Tim before him, brought up that Dule had told them he had been dealt pocket aces three times that night, which wasn't true. It was, of course, time for commentary from Dave and Phil:

Dave: You going to tell [James] about the pocket aces? Phil: No. No. He's James Woods, I'm not going to tell him he's been lied to!

The truth was it was now down to Danny and Dule, which of course is where things got scary.

"CPS" has now instituted a segment called "How Would You Play It?" which puts Phil, Dave and the audience in a player's spot for a hand, not showing their opponent's hole cards and leading us all to try to deduce what the heck we would all do . in this case, if we were Dule holding pocket kings, which, given that it's Dule, I felt pretty good about.

He made the de facto raise before the flop, which Danny called. Now the flop went A-4-A, which made Phil and I both start to think, "What if Danny has an ace?" Dule made the necessary raise to test if Danny did indeed have an ace, and Danny called it, which should've been a sign to Dule that he had one and that he should run screaming from the hand.

Except Dule's two weeks experience was starting to show through, as he started to ask the audience for advice -- even though he himself brought up how castmate Allison Janney had done the same thing and lost. They told him to call, and he did. Danny had A-9 and obviously took the pot, with the chip lead as a bonus prize. Screaming, I figured one of my favorite rising actors was done for.

But no, ladies and gentlemen, as we learned from Paul Rudd's effortless triumph last season, never count out the Card Rack.

Dule chipped away at Danny's stack by winning some big pots and a split pot, until he had taken back the chip lead. Danny, left with only 2,000 and huge blinds, was forced all-in.

On the second such hand, Dule finally got dealt something useable: Q-3. Danny held only 7-5. The flop of 3-J-A sealed Danny's fate, and the turn and river of J-4 didn't throw out a lifeline. After making a rookie mistake, the Card Rack indeed came back from the brink to pound the daylights out of the competition. As we left our celebrating hero and his cohorts, we did so in a fitting way: Mo lead them in one more chant of "Dule!"

It's almost enough to make me wish Paul Rudd had the time to come back, because I'd like to see what happens when you have two Card Racks at the same table. As it is, though, Dule Hill earned the right to carry on his title.

Much funnier, cleaner and unpredictable than the first game, Game 2.2 showed exactly what "Celebrity Poker Showdown" is all about and how much fun it can be. I'd definitely recommend you catch an encore if you missed it. And the fun is going to keep coming -- Bravo has hyped that in Game 2.3, one of the six celebs -- including returning player Michael Ian Black, Star Jones and the guy I eliminated in "CPS" in my head, Jeremy Sisto -- gets eliminated on the very first hand.

Now to wait for that, and to see how the Card Rack does in the Big Show . will he follow Paul's undeserved fate (remember the "That is the biggest suck-out I have ever seen!" from Phil?) or will he deal himself a championship? I can only think that it'll be at least as much fun as this game.