While last week's pretty eye-candy...

While last week's pretty eye-candy Michael Vartan crashed and burned quickly at the poker table, this week's dreamily dimpled Eddie Cibrian managed to stick it out and win. Even more impressive is that Phil Gordon finally broke his curse, which caused him to pick good players to win and then watch them lose terribly. Eddie  who's had kind of a leg up on the rest of them as he has been trained by pros for his gambling-themed show Tilt  didn't even have to do any of the dirty work, since Travis Tritt was the one who simultaneously knocked out Mo Gaffney and Rosie O'Donnell and then made short work of Penny Marshall. But I do think that Eddie's looks might have been a bit distracting. Penny who was so clueless at the poker table that even Dave said, "I'm getting the feeling she doesn't know what's going on" wanted "cute Eddie" to stay in the game from the get-go. And Mo commented that "he's got little villages in his dimples." The women all tried to use humor as a strategy to stay in the game. Rosie had a grand time making up tells, and when an audience member encouraged her to go all in early in the game, she happily quipped, "Please remove the crackhead in Row 2." But that wasn't nearly as funny as Rosie trying to teach Penny how to play the game on the fly, sometimes by even looking at her cards, and then translating for her not just about cards, but about everything. I was so thrilled that Penny took some of Rosie's money and that Penny got involved in the best exchange of the night without any help at all from her pal.

Travis: "Who do I have to have sex with to get a drink out here?"
Penny [quickly responds]: "I'll get it."

And even when he is responsible for sending her to the losers' lounge shortly after, she still offers to get the drink or to [bleep] him. My, that Laverne was always the frisky one. Guess some things never change. I'm just looking forward to next week's finale when who knows what could happen. Until then I'm just grateful that even though this show is taped in Vegas, it doesn't stay in Vegas. AC

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