As we have been learning throughout this month’s poker series, the popularity of poker is not limited to the average person. A wide range of celebrities from the sports world, Hollywood and politics has poker skills to rival even a seasoned poker pro.
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Our final celebrity poker player in the series is actor Matthew Perry, who is best known as Chandler Bing on the hit American television series Friends. As has been shown throughout February, many actors have an innate ability to show no emotion at the poker table, which makes them viable candidates in the poker arena. Matthew Perry has such skills.
While Perry went into rehab around the turn of the millennium thanks to an addiction to painkillers, the actor has developed quite an addiction to gambling and online poker. So when Celebrity Poker Showdown started airing on the Bravo cable network, Matthew Perry was one of the first celebrity poker players to sign up.
He was featured in an episode that also included Travis Tritt Sean Astin, Lauren Graham, Chris Masterson, Matthew Perry and Sara Rue. Perry did not come out the winner and took a lot of criticism from poker pro Phil Gordon, who co-hosts the televised poker tournament. In the fourth season of Celebrity Poker Showdown, Perry showed up for more, playing against Christopher Meloni, Stephen Root, Sarah Silverman and Michael Vartan. This time Phil Gordon praised Perry as most improved and the actor was victorious, moving on to the final poker table to play against Dennis Rodman, Kevin Nealon, Neil Patrick Harris and Mekhi Phifer. The latter would take down the final table, which aired in November 2004.
Rumoured to be a heavy online poker player, Matthew Perry has admitted that he does have a problem with the way he plays his cards in poker because he hums to himself when he has a good hand. “If I have good cards, I start humming “Kansas Dust in the Wind” and I’m just trying to get away from that,” he said.
The consummate comedian, Perry is always good for a laugh. But we think he’s a pretty good celebrity poker player too.
