Sharon Osborne Colon Cancer Foundation Charity Poker Tournament

The first weekend of February, I was invited to play in this tournament which took place at the Hard Rock in Vegas. Saturday morning, Katie, myself, Shaun Sipos (Melrose Place) and Nicholas Gonzales (Melrose Place, Mental, lots of things) all met at Burbank airport for bloody marys and mimosas. A few minutes later, we see Tiffany Michelle and Joe Reitman, who were on the same flight. Already I know it’s going to be a good night.
 
Katie and I had planned on flying in for the tourney and taking the last flight out from Vegas to Burbank, which was about 9 pm. We all arrive to Hard Rock and have a quick dinner/drinks at Pink Taco. Yum. After dinner, we go to the tournament room where I find at my table the two Melrose Place boys, Lou Diamond Phillips, Cheryl Hines (LOVE Curb Your Enthusiasm). I was pretty excited just to listen to Cheryl talk. She’s hilarious and she’s not a bad poker player either.
 
I started off playing pretty tight. These charity tournaments normally have lots of people that really have no clue how to play poker. I figured it was better for some of those people to be weeded out before I really started to play. About an hour into it, I won a pretty big hand against Nicholas Gonzales that gave me a pretty nice stack (thanks Nick). A few hours after that we moved tables and shortly after I was chipleader at my table. By that time, most of the people we were there with had busted and Katie reminded me that our flight leaves in like an hour. At that point, there were 3 tables left and I was probably 6th in chips overall. I decided it was time to shove next hand, if I went out, I was making my flight, if I won, then I would really start playing and change my flight. I shoved with 10 7 spades and had 2 callers (crap!) AQ and KJ. I flopped a set and knocked the 2 people out. I actually did feel bad about that, but that’s gambling.
 
After that ridiculous play, I got comfortable knowing I was just going to stay the night in Vegas even though I had nothing but the clothes on my back and my purse. Haha. I started playing pretty well. At the final table, there notables such as Sal Masekela (he’s the really cute guy with dreads who does the Daily 10 on E!) Tiffany Michelle, and Sara Jean Underwood (Playmate of the Year). Sara kept shoving, and God bless her, I really don’t think she had a clue what was going on. She was totally just happy to be there. Finally she shoves and I call with KJ and I doubled up. I also took out Sal, which made me pretty sad, because he is just so damn cute. Finally, it came down to me and another guy, who I cannot remember his name. We only played heads up for about 15 minutes, when I shoved with 10 9 clubs. He called with 7 8 and I won with a pair of tens. All in all, I won like 6 bounties, which I gave away to people, and a really nice trophy and some other prizes. It was so cool to win for such a great charity and I gave half my winnings to the Sharon Osborne Foundation. I really hope even that amount helped. It was a fun night. The after party was held at Vanity in the Hard Rock, where I hung with Tiffany Michelle and Maria Ho. Love those girls, they’re so fun.
 
The next morning I flew out to LA and got to watch my SAINTS win the Superbowl. This really could not have been a better weekend.