If you don’t Tivo or stay up late, you may not have caught this week’s Poker After Dark theme week. It’s so cute…Couples.

Three pair of significant others: Marco and Jennifer Traniello (the married couple), and two pair living in sin—Phil Laak with Jennifer Tilly and Frenchman David Benyamine with Erica Schoenberg (pictured above).

Unfortunately for the male viewers for the rest of the week, the woman who looks like a movie star and isn’t, Erica Schoenberg, super-donked off all her chips in two hands and is gone. She sailed half of her stack to the real movie star, Tilly. Then donated the other half to Marco Traniello. On her knockout hand she played about as badly as possible. Erica flopped top pair with A K and weakly bet the flop, allowing Marco to draw. Worse she checked the turn. Marco made his straight on the river and Schoenberg completed the fiasco by paying him off all-in. The beauty and the beast-ly play.

To add to the adorable-ness of this week, the couples have a prop bet. If any partner knocks out their own significant other that surviving partner gets $1,000 from each player at the table. And a night on the coach.

This is a worse theme than COWBOY week with Gabe Kaplan and Chau Giang in a 10-gallon hats.

The saddest part of the show is watching the disintegration of Phil Laak’s former self-confidence. He’s been on such a severe losing streak for the last few years, he’s not the same Unibomber we once knew. No push-ups, no scurrying around to see the dealer’s card. We saw Phil last weekend dissolve in front of Gus Hansen in the NBC Head’s-Up telecast. Laak would have been less humiliated if he’d begged off sick. Even Jennifer is making fun of him now, as she is more confident of her poker than he is of his. Added to all that, his buddy Antonio Esfandiari continues to soar into the poker stratosphere.

That’s tournament poker, people. Don’t be fooled by the star treatment. You have to keep winning no matter what.

What do you think?

Love

Mike Paulle

Email: mikepaulle@aol.com

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