Annie Duke Blog

Last week saw Melissa Rivers melt down, letting loose with a tirade like nothing I have ever seen on national TV. We also saw Joan Rivers quit and had a week of wondering if Joan would be back. Well, I knew Joan would be back because I figured she only quit for the drama anyway. It didn’t really matter because either way there was no upside for her to quitting. If she didn’t come back she looks like a diva drama queen who has to fight her daughter’s battles for her. If she does come back, she looks like a diva drama queen who is full of shit when she threatens to quit. Either way, she is a quitter. And I thought the one cardinal sin that you do not commit on The Apprentice was to quit. Tionne got fired for merely volunteering to come into the boardroom and support Melissa. I get that the quitting appears sympathetic because she is quitting over her daughter. But she knew when she signed up for the show that she would be against her daughter. She knew her daughter would be fired first (afterall she is Joan Rivers). And she knew she wouldn’t like the firing (who ever does). She signed up for that and knew what she was getting into. So that deep into the show when faced with the reality of what she signed up for she quits. In my book that still just makes her a quitter.

Now Melissa and Joan’s tirades came, in part, because the Rivers thought that I was manipulating Brande in some sort of conspiracy to get rid of Melissa, who they believed to be my stronger competitor. The opposite could not have been more true. Brande was by far my stronger competitor and I went against what would be good short term game playing to stick by Brande’s side. Against Melissa, Melissa has to be project manager so if we lose the next challenge she goes home since she would have PM’ed and is not an effective fundraiser. Against Brande, on the other hand, I have to be Project Manager so if we lose I go home since Brande is such an effective fundraiser and I am the PM. I knew that going into last week’s challenge. I knew it was to my advantage to take Melissa with me. But Brande deserved it more. Brande was my friend. She was the better player. So I went against my short term best interest in recommending Melissa get fired but I really felt it was in my long term best interested because I could then live with myself after the game.

Well, we go into task delivery and man, I have this big moment of regret on that decision. First, of course, Joan comes back in grand entrance style. Then we find out we are writing a jingle and a 30 second spot for Chicken of the Sea. A jingle? WTF? With Clint Black, grammy award winning songwriter on the other team? Are you kidding me? I know we have lost before we even start. I know I am going home. And somehow I feel it is justice. I recommended Melissa get fired when it was in my interest to keep her, the weaker player, around. With Brande on my team I am, indeed, PM which means we cannot lose the challenge. Period. Or I go home. I have been more than willing to take credit where credit is due me for what I do in the tasks (too much for most people’s liking, agreed). So it is some sort of poetic justice that I am going to die by my own overconfident sword.Whatever. I deserve it.

So Brande and I immediately are in the crappiest of crappy moods. I mean we are total BITCHES because we are in the depths of despair. We are already facing the boardroom in our minds. And we don’t like it. We get it together just enough to research Chicken of the Sea before our meetings with the execs. What we found out in that meeting was that the execs 1) like radio spots that are more serious and informative 2) Chicken of the Sea is bought by moms overwhelmingly and 3) The jingle should be catchy for kids because it is their moms who by the product.

Okay, so that meeting got us some focus and I immediately tasked Brande with putting together the 30 second spot while I went to work on the jingle. On the van ride over, I find out that while I always thought of myself as the least musical person on the planet it turns out that crown would go to Brande. I actually forbade her to sing! So I gave myself the jingle job by default. During the van ride over, me and Brande’s attitudes really changed. I think we realized the absurdity of what we had been tasked with. And we just decided to try to have as much fun as possible with the whole thing. I mean, I just got it into to my head that if I go home from The Celebrity Apprentice because I lost in a song writing challenge to Clint Black. Whatever. I could hold my head up high. From that point on we spent much of the day just laughing our asses off.

In the midst of all the laughter, we did get our work done. Brande and I discussed the 30 second spot being a conversation between two moms on a playground and after we had the concept she went to work writing it and rehearsing it with Maddie (our singer). I went to work on the jingle and was dismayed to find out that despite the fact that we had professional musicians they were not allowed to write a single note for us. Dammit. I had some fantasy that we would write the lyrics and kind of hum a little but the musicians would do the actual work. Not so. Had to write every damn note.

So, Brande left me alone with the guy on guitar and I can’t explain what happened. Don Jr. had come by earlier and said he liked our lyrics. I figured out that lyrics to jingles just really have to mention the brand name a lot of times and I just went with that in writing it. That boosted my confidence some. But I still to this day don’t have any idea how I wrote the song. I just started humming notes and was trying to think contemporary yet nostalgic and out popped this jingle. Here are the lyrics:

Moms they want it fresh
Kids they want it fast
Chicken of the Sea is the name you can trust
Chicken of the Sea is the tuna that you know
For a healthy choice anywhere at home or on the go
Ask any mermaid you happen to sea
What’s the best tuna, Chicken of the Sea

I pretty much went with jingle writing 101 there (after researching jingles on the internet). I hit all the brand points of health and convenience moms and kids and repeated the brand name three times. Brande included all the same brand points in her 30 second spot and also included all the different products in the product line, like the fact they also carry other seafoods like salmon. Between the two I think we hit all the messaging and Brande did amazing voice over work for the 30 second spot.

After watching the reaction of our musicians to the jingle we had done I really came out of the depths of despair and found my hope again. They really liked what we had done. At that point I knew that if we lost it was not because we had given up, given in to our hopelessness in the task. If we lost it would just be because we couldn’t beat Clint Black in a songwriting challenge. And if that was how I got fired from Celebrity Apprentice so be it as I said before.

Before the boardroom, in my private interview, I teared up when asked about the challenge because this one was so stressful. I knew that if we lost, and at the beginning of the task I thought the possibility of that was 100%, I would be the one with my head on the chopping block having to argue myself vs Brande. And I didn’t want to have to do that. I had no desire to fight for my spot vs Brande. All I wanted was for the two of us to be in the final two together and I was stressed out at the prospect of both arguing against Brande and knowing I was going down anyway as PM of the project.

When we went in the boardroom, we got to hear KOTU’s jingle and commercial. When I heard the jingle I thought we really had a chance. I don’t think country was the right choice because it is a very narrow demographic. But more importantly I thought the song was not uptempo enough and didn’t say enough about the brand. I also didn’t think it was a song little kids would like as much as our jingle. I also didn’t like the commercial they did. That is my personal opinion, of course, but I didn’t think it was funny or informative enough. The executives did like the KOTU commercial in its tone and I am not going to argue with them on that. Their opinion matters more than mine. But they agreed that the brand messaging just wasn’t there.

The moment I knew Athena had won was when Don Jr. gave the positives and negatives of our jingle and commercial spot. All they said they didn’t like about it was we didn’t get in that the product also comes in pouches. That was it! One tiny thing on the negative list! The list of negatives for KOTU was pretty long and, yes, we did pull the victory out! At that moment Brande and I just grabbed each other in disbelief and friendship and solidarity. We had pulled through this thing together to get to the final four and we couldn;t believe we had managed to overcome such huge odds. I am embarassed that I cried in the boardroom but I was really overwhelmed by the whole two day experience.

I have to say that Clint was such a gentlemen in this challenge. He was so encouraging in that boardroom in saying that everyone has music in them and they just need to find it. He really meant that and you could see how much he just really loves what he does and really believes everyone has a little of that in them. And he was very gracious in the loss. The really great side of Clint really shone through that night and I hope everyone can see that, despite his drawbacks, there is a good and gracious man in there. I thought he exited with amazing class and grace. An interesting contrast to last week’s exit.

So, now we are down to the final four and we all have to go get interviewed by Piers. Before the interviews, while in the war room, Joan pointedly ignored me and Brande. And I mean pointedly. They didn’t show it but when we went in to argue for the final four in the boardroom Joan claimed to Trump that we had ignored her. WTF? I was so mad about that and glad they showed how she ignored the two of us on TV. Anyway, we go in to get interviewed by Piers and Brande is first to go. I thought it was unfair that Brande got painted as not bright enough for the final 2. Nothing could be farther from the truth. She is very smart. She runs her own business (Financially Hung) and I think she played the game brilliantly to get to the final four. In the end, the proof is in the pudding. And depsite both of the Rivers women coming at her with guns a blazing she managed to outlast Melissa quite nicely, even when it was in my best interest to have Melissa stick around. I wish people would give Brande Roderick more credit for that. But Piers didn’t see that, unfortunately so Brande ended up getting fired first.

When Piers interviewed Jesse James he mainly just pushed him on his lack of fund raising and really got on him about not leveraging his marriage to Sandra Bullock. I feel kind of two ways about this. First, I deeply respect Jesse for keeping his personal life out of The Apprentice and we should all respect his right to keep his private life private. But, on the other hand, I am disturbed by him saying that he was holding back for the end. I really felt all the charities were super important and all deserving of a share of the money raised on the show. I came out strong with the money because I really wanted to raise a lot of money for charity full stop, not just my charity in particular. So I think Jesse made a mistake there because it is really about the charities in the end. So Jesse got fired because he wouldn’t leverage his relationship with his wife. I think that is unfair. But what is fair is that he admitted to holding back. And that is a fair reason for the firing.

So that put me against Joan. When Piers interviewed Joan he gave her every opportunity to retract her statements about Hitler in regards to me. He gave her every out to say that was uncalled for and over the top. But she wouldn’t even admit those comments might have been just the littlest bit out of line. Gotta love a woman for her conviction, I guess. But Piers clearly was not happy about how personal she made her attacks and clearly agreed with me that the mother daughter thing had no place in business when they both knew what they were signing up for. In my case he just kept asking me about strategy and how I might have gotten my opponents to do what I wanted them to in the game. He also asked if I talk too much. I gave him a big fat YES on that one. No arguments there. When he asked me what my biggest fault is, which they didn’t show, I said that it is that I suffer fools so poorly. He actually said he thought that was a good thing since he is like that too. But I think it really is my absolutely worst quality. That and I talk to much

After Trump decided on me and Joan as the final two, I said I respect her. I also said later, very harshly, that I don’t like her and she has made the game personal for me. Now I want to clarify why I said in the boardroom that I respect Joan Rivers because I understand it looks weird in light of the fact that I clearly don’t like her. I do respect her in as much as I hope I could still have her energy at her age and have the longevity of her career. She is clearly a very shrewd woman and I absolutely respect that about her, I respect her ability to persevere. However, that does not mean I like her. So my comments that she has made this personal for me and that I do not like her at all as a person in my private interview are not inconsistent with what I said in the boardroom. I would like you to find me the person who can come under 10 weeks of escalating attacks, being called Hitler and worse than white trash (what office environment allows that, btw?), and still like the person delivering those attacks. By this point in the show I am angry. She has attacked me without stop. She has attacked Brande. She has attacked all poker players spewing the most hateful comments about them. She had repeatedly told me I wasn’t even allowed to talk to her because I was so beneath her. Of course I took that personally. But that does not mean I don’t respect her energy or her longevity of career. It does mean I don’t respect her tactics or her boundaries of what is acceptible behavior. I don’t think Joan could understand that I could feel both things at once because for her it is all black and white. If she doesn’t like you then you are 100% bad with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. You are worse than Hitler in her eyes.

So next week is the live Finale. I am really excited for that and busy putting on my thinking cap about ways I can argue for myself in the final boardroom. I am leaving for New York Tuesday to shoot some stuff for the show then Thursday I am going to the Refugees International Gala. Then I head back to NYC where my family is meeting me for the finale. And I am having dinner with the gay guys from room 702 (remember the hotel challenge?) I can’t wait to see them! So tune in next Sunday to see who wins! And who I end up with on my team I can’t wait!

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I was looking around the Funny or Die website tonight and I happened upon this video starring Adam West. Love him. Have any of you seen the made for TV Batman movie where the clearly rubber sharks are attacking Batman who is hanging from a ladder from a helicopter and somehow these sharks are not suffocating out of the water? Doesn’t get better then that. Same bat time. Same bat channel.

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Ahhh….the memories. Check out what is coming up on Celebrity Apprentice. I suggest everyone watch the episode with earplugs! lol

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Well, apparently Joan Rivers had no idea how many poker players there are on this planet. Or, more likely, maybe she just thought we all play in backrooms like the white trash we are afraid to admit to anyone that we are poker players. Well, too bad for her, we are all out of the closet on that one. So, I guess maybe she must be getting some heat for her tirade against my profession the other night on The Celebrity Apprentice. She twittered today:

Poker players calm down! I was referring to one poker player as white trash, not all of them. So everybody in the poker world…CALM DOWN!

Really Joan? I think we all know that you weren’t referring to just me because it was on camera. In case anyone has any doubts about what a wide net she cast over anyone who has ever picked up a deck of cards, I refer you to the video:

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I love Jeffrey Pollack. No. Really. I do. I love him. That is one amazing dude. So Jeffrey is The Commissioner of The World Series of Poker. He has done an amazing job with that brand and that tournament series, really reaching out and making a partnership with the players to create what is, without a doubt, the premier brand in poker. Today was the annual media briefing leading into the WSOP and, of course, Joan Rivers and her poker players are beyond white trash commentary came up. Here is the article from The Associated Press. After reading it you will get why Jeffrey is so awesome.

Poker series commissioner digs at Joan Rivers
By OSKAR GARCIA, Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
(04-28) 17:19 PDT LAS VEGAS, (AP) —
The commissioner of the World Series of Poker commissioner said Tuesday that he thinks that cardplayer Annie Duke’s presence on reality show “Celebrity Apprentice” will be good for the game, despite repeated insults thrown at Duke and the profession by Joan Rivers.
Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack mentioned Rivers’ name unexpectedly during a news conference when a reporter asked him if he thought a woman would eventually win the series’ no-limit Texas Hold ‘em main event.
“We would love to see a woman win the main event … unless that woman happens to be Joan Rivers,” Pollack said.
Pollack said during the same news conference that series organizers planned to monitor players’ conduct more closely during the tournaments to more effectively dole out punishments for violations like taunting at the table.
The 75-year-old comedian called Duke a “Nazi” and said all poker players were “beyond white trash” in an episode of the NBC show that aired Sunday. Rivers’ anger at Duke built over several episodes, but she unleashed her fury after her daughter Melissa was fired by Donald Trump on the reality show.
“Your people, you give money with blood on it,” Rivers said.
“I met your people in Vegas for 40 years. None of them have last names, none of them,” Rivers told Duke. “You’re a poker player, a poker player. That’s beyond white trash.”
Duke, who won a gold bracelet and nearly $138,000 in 2004 for winning an Omaha High-Low tournament, responded by saying that poker players are “the most awesome people in the world.”
Pollack said he believed Duke’s presence on the show represented a “quantum leap” for poker in terms of its place in mainstream popular culture.
“Annie is representing poker players beautifully. I think she’s playing the game masterfully,” Pollack said. “We think the net effect is that it’s going to be very good for poker and for the World Series of Poker.”
Pollack and other organizers said they revamped their system of warnings and penalties for the series after several incidents, including poker superstar Phil Hellmuth calling another player an “idiot” during the main event, violating tournament rules.
“After the episode with Phil in the main event last year, we said publicly we’re going to review our system of warnings and penalties. We have done that,” Pollack said. “We saw a couple of things last year that we weren’t too pleased with or proud of and recognized that some changes needed to be made.”
Pollack said tournament officials starting this year will keep a written log of warnings and penalties, using it to better determine appropriate punishments when rules are violated.
“Our intention is to make sure that the behavior of a few does not impact the experience of the many,” Pollack said before mentioning “Celebrity Apprentice” again.
“Anyone who thinks that poker players are anything other than a great group of people, that represent not only America and the world, is absolutely wrong,” he said. “No one will defend the honor of poker players more than the WSOP.”

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I am not exactly sure what a whore pit viper is but I hope it becomes the catch phrase of 2009.

This week we were tasked with creating a 4 page advertorial for Right Guard. The teams were 4 on 2 so one of Athena’s members needed to be moved over to KOTU. That morning I was sure it would be me. I figured the producers would want to see Joan and me on the same team. Man, was I wrong. Those producers are much, much smarter than I am for sure because the dynamic between me, Brande and Melissa was much more interesting to watch as was the dynamic between Clint and Jesse. Go producers for moving Jesse on over to KOTU. A much better move than I would have made.

So, I will go over KOTU first, then address Athena.

On KOTU, Jesse really knew magazine advertising. He is an amazing photgrapher and he owns a magazine (called Garage Magazine) and understands the cutting edge of this kind of layout. Jesse and Joan both gave Clint ideas. Joan came up with a bunch of big black guys hovering around David Lee (a white guy) to show David under pressure. What the hell? I don’t get that and it seems kind of racist. So that idea was promptly rejected. Jesse came up with this idea of David being the new kid on the block with the pressures of New York City to deal with. He drew out an amazing two page spread with David in front of a beautiful cityscape. That is the idea KOTU went with. Good call.

Jesse went out to photograph the cityscape while Clint stayed back to lay out the project. I found the interactions on the team interesting. As far as I could tell, Joan just stayed out of the way once her ideas were rejected and left Clint and Jesse to do all the work. Clint incorporated a lot of Jesse’s ideas as well as some of his own. Jesse got pissed that Clint wasn’t executing all of Jesse’s ideas. Now I am a huge fan of Jesse James. I think he is incredibly talented. I think he is incredibly intelligent. I think he deserves to be in the final two. But in this case, I feel the need to defend Clint Black. Obviously, I wasn’t in the room so I am only looking at the edit. But it seemed that Clint was trying really hard to be accommodating of Jesse’s ideas and really incorporate them. In fact, the final layout seemed to reflect most of what Jesse wanted. Jesse, though, decided to absent himself from the process at some point. Even when Clint was begging for input, Jesse refused to give him any. In this case I think Jesse let his personal feelings about Clint (he clearly doesn’t like him) to get in the way of being a team player. Had the team lost, I would have actually thought Jesse should be fired for shutting Clint out like that when Clint was begging for help. I never thought I would say that because in terms of overall game play I don’t think there is a comparison between the two. Jesse is the much, much stronger player.

Over on Athena, Brande stepped up as Project Manager and doled out the tasks. She tasked me with doing the brand messaging and the presentation and the slogan and and and. I was actually very resistant to being tasked with so much. I tried to insist that Brande do the presentation as I felt that was a lot to put on my shoulders. In the end Brande really wanted me to do all that so I did what my Project Manager asked of me, reluctantly. Melissa was tasked with doing all the photo editing and layout work. Brande oversaw everything.

I came up with the concept of David Lee naked with the saying “Right Guard: The only thing I ever need to wear” That is the concept Brande chose to go with, which upset Melissa. In fact, everything upset Melissa. When I called Brande to let her know the photographer had said it was an advantage to shoot David first, Melissa got upset that we were keeping secrets. I am not sure why since we were on speaker phone. The fact is Melissa felt like she was being set up for failure by me and Brande. But that is actually not true. I am not saying that I would not have done that if I had to in order to succeed in the game. Of course I would have. But I didn’t need to. Melissa was setting herself up for failure with no help from me by being an ineffective fundraiser and abrasive in the boardroom to Trump, to Piers, to George, etc. At the end of the game, those things really matter and I already knew that Melissa was going to have trouble getting to the end. The dynamic with her mother was already bringing her down, the dynamic with the people in the boardroom as well. And the fundraising capabilities. Brande was, plain and simple, the stronger player.

But, amazingly, in the end I think we all worked very well together. I took Melissa aside to try to make her feel more included. Brande did the same. Because in the end we are a team and we wanted to win and not have to face the boardroom and go into the next task a team of 2 against a team of 3. I actually to this day think we made a very good layout. And I stand behind the presentation I did and was extremely surprised my Melissa’s comments about my presentation. She watched me practice that at least 5 times and never once said she didn’t like it. She never once said it wasn’t conversational enough. Even she thought it was bad, why didn’t she ever say that to my face? Why did she only critique me behind my back? My only explanation is that she was trying to set me up for failure, the very thing she accused me of doing to her. I would have liked the constructive criticism to tell you the truth since I was reluctant to do the presentation in the first place. I really felt Brande should be doing it.

So we go in the boardroom and this interesting dynamic between Clint and Jesse comes out. I knew Jesse did not like Clint. But that was hard for me to watch because, again, from what I saw Clint was actually trying to cooperate for once in the game and I could see he felt very shut out and thrown under the bus in all that. From what I could see the layout did mostly come from Jesse’s ideas…just not 100% of the layout. And when I saw their work I knew we were going to lose. They did a really good job. So I am surprised Jesse was so upset about the whole thing in the first place except that he just plain old doesn’t like Clint. That is my only explanation.

On our side, the executives liked the concept of David Lee half naked and they liked the branding but they thought the execution was boring. That was their words and that was our downfall. Athena lost the task. I was very nervous that I might be the one to go simply because I had been tasked with so much. The thing I had going for was exactly the compliment Cramer had paid to me earlier…that I had done most of the work so if we won I would get a lot of credit it but I had also set myself up not be be fired because I had been so vocal in making sure that everyone knew I did not ask to have so much put on my shoulders. But that might not matter, even if I had played the hand right. Even if I had made sure I left all the decision making power with my PM I still might get axed for the failed layout since I had done so much of it.

As soon as we got in the boardroom, though, it became clear right away that I was not in danger. Trump, Cramer and Ivanka all quizzed both Brande and Melissa about whether or not I had taken over the task and everyone vehemently agreed that I had not. That really put me out of hot water and, interestingly enough, it was Melissa who really argued the most strongly in my favor when she was trying to argue I should be fired.

http://www.nbc.com/the-celebrity-apprentice/video/clips/week-9-who-would-melissa-fire/1091268/

The other point was that, actually, in the end the execs thought the photos were boring and that happened to be the one thing that was not my job. That was a lucky break for me since I had so much on my shoulders in this task. So it came down to Brande and Melissa and who would be fired. When I was asked about this I had an interesting dilemma. At this point in the game, Brande and I had become very good friends so my loyalties certainly were with her. However, I also knew that going into the next task I would a) have to be project manager if Brande went along with me since she had already stepped up twice and b) that if we were to lose I would have a much weaker argument against Brande than I would against Melissa. Being PM for sure on the next task would be a tough spot since the PM is usually the most under fire. And Brande was the stronger player to boot. She had raised much more money than Melissa, second only to me in fact in the game. She was an incredibly hard worker. And, this is really important, she was really well liked. Much more well liked than me, obviously. Melissa, on the other hand, was a weak fundraiser, was not well liked at all and would have to be project manager on the next task since she had lost on her first try so would need to try for a win in order to win the whole game. So taking Melissa long with me would be a better play.

But I really went against game play here and decided to argue for Melissa getting fired. Why? Because I really just felt Brande deserved to be in the game more and I just plain really like and respect her as a person. So when push came to shove, I recommended Melissa get fired even though it felt like it was against my short term best interests. I figured the life equity issue was much more important to me at that point…walking away from the game knowing that I had been loyal to my friend, to Brande.

So, in the end Trump fired Melissa and, well, you saw the meltdown from the Rivers for yourself. Folks! It’s a game where you get fake fired from a fake job all in the hopes of raising a ton of money for charity! Really, calling anyone a whore pit viper under those circumstances is an extreme reaction and, frankly, not losing with grace. And Joan Rivers. Well. What can I say there? As far as Brande goes…as much as Joan likes to claim I called Brande an idiot she is the only one who has disparaged Brande’s intellect falling on the age old your a dumb blond insult. Brande defended herself pretty well against that one pointing out if she is so stupid then why is she still there and not Melissa. Good point Brande. For everyone thinking I somehow manipulated Brande in order to get ahead in the game I would venture to say it is quite the opposite. Brande outplayed Melissa pretty nicely.

Now, as for Joan’s comments about poker players…well…what I said on the show is true. Poker players are the most wonderful people you will ever meet. Poker players are thoughtful and generous and are good for their word. I think it is so interesting that the group that has come out the most strongly in support of the show and in support of these charities, poker players, are so vilely disparaged by Joan on the show. But it was clear Joan doesn’t care much about that when she said, “Oh stop with all this charity nonsense.” Joan can attack me all she wants. She can attack my morals. She can call me a Nazi and compare me to Hitler. I signed up for that when I agreed to do the show. I was there to defend myself. But to use such a broad brush to insult a whole group of people who did not sign up for that kind of abuse, implying they are criminals, saying outright that they give blood money and are worse than white trash. Well now I am angry. To insult me is one thing. I can take it. To insult my friends who have been nothing but generous and selfless in their support of charity. That is a whole other thing and that is where you can get a rise out of me.

Joan saying that all poker players have no last names and are worse than white trash is like me saying that all comedians are miserable, depressed people who take their angst, anger and unhappiness out on everyone around them. Clearly, that would be unfair.

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As part of my work as a board member of The Decision Education Foundation I have started developing some talks on decision making to give to parents and students. The Decision Education Foundation is an organization devoted to developing curricula that teach good decision making skills for K through 12 for whole school integration. Last week, I flew out to Philly to give a talk at The Haverford School which is a school that has drunk the DEF Kool-Aid, so to speak. They have partnered with the foundation in developing curricula and the DEF language is spoken everywhere there. I gave two talks, one to the upper school during the morning then at night I gave a talk to parents. Here is the audio of the talk I gave to the upper school.

How to Determine if you are of Sound Mind as a Decision Maker

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I guess I am naive. Here is the thing. As I watch the show, The Celebrity Apprentice, there are things I regret. I see my mistakes. I blog my mistakes. I see that I misjudged certain people in terms of how they acted to my face vs what they said behind my back. That is a cardinal sin for a poker player since I am supposed to read people well. There are things I have said on that show I wish I could take back. Why am I naive? Because I assume others on the show all feel the same way. But apparently not.

The one thing I was sure of was that Joan would regret the Hitler comparison once she saw the show. She is a Jew, after all. My father is Jewish. So I figured that when she saw that, she would cringe and decide she should have kept to the despicable and 16 personalities and white trash comments. All deeply personal but not nearly as offensive as referring to Hitler (or Mussolini or comparing choosing two cupcakes to Sophie’s Choice). And yet, Joan tweeted the following yesterday:

I just compared Annie to Hitler and I feel terrible. My apologies to Hitler.

Referring once again to Godwin’s Law, I have nothing more to say.

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Tonight we saw the completion of the jewelry auction. The show opened with Phil Hellmuth calling me to let me know that the other team had contacted him. He also told me that a friend and business associate was the one who helped Natalie Gulbis out in trying to get him to bid against me. Obviously, I nipped that one in the bud right away so for everyone who has been wondering during the week if Phil Hellmuth was going to betray me…you have your answer. No way! Poker players are tight and I don’t think there is anyone KOTU could have called who would have helped them. Even if they had called a player who actually wasn’t one of my dear friends I doubt they would have seen the utility in coming out against me like that. I love my friends and I love poker players!

Anyway, on to the auction. I was really proud of my team in our auction. I think everyone did an amazing job. Jesse was under represented on the episode because he was the one who really organized the auction itself and I don’t think that was shown. He figured out where to seat our donors, coached people on bidding against our guys to make the auction seem really exciting and made the beautiful auction brochure. Brande brought in a ton of money and did a great job with the models. Melissa, depsite her constant complaining that I did not praise her enough, did a great job with the jewelry and was a wonderful stage manager for the actual show. And I was very happy with my auctioning skills. All in all we raised over $150K profit in that auction! And my friends were amazing in their support. Also, Stewey Rahr, Brande’s donor, was just so generous with us. In fact, we was so sweet that he even bid on one of the other team’s items just because he felt bad for them. You are a good man, Stewey Rahr.

Anyway, on to KOTU’s auction. Well. What is there to say? It was an unmitigated disaster. The series of decisions that were made in regard to that show were pretty astonishingly poor. In particular, I think the decision to put all the bidders on one piece was terrible. Yes, the task is in the end judged on money raised. But this is Ivanka Trump’s jewelry and it is absolutely an insult to her to have pieces of hers not even sell. I feel that decision was inexcusable. Also, I can’t fathom why Joan didn’t come out immediately and take the mic from Clint. I am not sure why it took her so long because it was clear that Clint was completely failing at the auctioneer job. And then poor Natalie. I feel that Natalie was set up right from the start. It made no sense for her to be the one picking out the jewelry. That should have been Joan’s job. She designs and sells jewelry for a living after all. But even so, Natalie was picking jewelry she knew the donors wanted without being told they had decided to not have the donors bid on but one piece. That is a set up, plain and simple.

So we go into the boardroom and the first thing that happens is I praise Melissa for the amazing jewelry she picked out. I find that ironic since Melissa had spent the whole show griping about how she wasn’t getting enough praise for all the great things she was doing. I wonder if Melissa was surprised and somewhat chagrined after all her whining in private at all the praised heaped on her at that moment.

Trump then turned his attention to KOTU and here is where I think it gets interesting because as Trump is quizzing Joan about her inability to raise money (she raised a paltry $8K on this challenge, by far the least on her team) Melissa jumps in to defend her mother. Piers, rightly so, remarks on this, wondering why Melissa is defending a member of the other team. She says she is defending Joan because she is her mother and Piers says so what? It is a game and that doesn’t matter. She is defending a member of KOTU while not defending a member of her own team. Piers felt this was inexcusable and I must say I agree with him. If Melissa wants to figure out why I turned my back on her, since she keeps remarking on it, she need look no further than her behavior in this boardroom where she never once puts her mother in her place as her mother viciously attacks me (as evidenced by the painful, reluctant response of Melissa to the question about whether or not I am a bad person). But the moment her mother is attacked by Trump or by Piers or by Ivanka, Melissa jumps right in to defend her even though she is not on her team.

Now this dynamic makes the game very interesting to play because, while there are two teams on the show in Athena and KOTU, there is also a third team: Team Rivers. That means that the other players have to be very aware of this dynamic and know that if they go against one, they will be attacked and ganged up on by the other. I was certainly aware of this.

Anyway, during the attacks, Joan Rivers compares me to Hitler. How fun! First, let me say that I find comparing anything that happens on Celebrity Apprentice to the slaughter of 6 million Jews to be offensive. But aside from that, I find the comparison to be absurd, so absurd in fact that there is really no response to it. Anyone interested should check out Godwin’s Law. What Godwin’s Law states is basically that the longer an argument continues in a newsgroup on the internet that the probability that someone references Hitler or the Nazi’s approaches 100%. I guess we need to add a corollary for reality tv now! Another corollary of the law is that once that happens, the argument ends. This because there is no where to go from there. The comparison is so absurd that there is no response and, in fact, responding would trivialize the Holocaust itself.

So for anyone who is wondering why I didn’t attack Joan in the boardroom, this is why. What exactly am I suppsoed to say to her? That I’ve never invaded Poland? That I have never killed anyone? It was just so silly and offensive and responding would have handed the power back to Joan so I held my tongue and just tried to act as professionally as possible. But, make no mistake, I was totally steaming inside. And hurt. I did not enjoy the vicious, personal attacks and watching Melissa defend her mother in that boardroom, well my thoughts mirrored Piers. Who’s team was Melissa on? It was clear from that boardroom that there was only one team she cared about and it was neither KOTU nor Athena, it was team Rivers.

The verdict was delivered and not only did Athena win but we set a record for money raised in a single week with a grand total of $245K for Refugees International. They are an amazing charity, advocating for the over 40 million refugees around the world, and really deserve the money. I am so honored to be playing for them on the show. In the end, this is why I did the show, to help organizations just like this one not only raise money but also raise awareness about such an important cause.

Anyway, on to the firing of Natalie Gulbis. I find that firing illogical and believe that Joan was setting Natalie up for that from the beginning. For all Joan’s tears in the boardroom, she spent a tremendous amount of time in her private interviews bashing both Natalie and Clint and there was no doubt she was setting them up for failure. And yet I feel that pretty no much matter how you look at the task, Joan was the one at fault here. There are only two ways to judge this task:

1) Say that the task was solely about money raising and the show did not matter.

Joan made this argument because when Piers, Ivanka and I all criticized Joan for the decision to not insure that all the pieces sold, Joan argued vehemently that this task was just about the money. But Joan raised the least money on her team by far, only bringing in $8K as PM of a money raising task. Natalie, depsite failing to bring in Phil Hellmuth, managed to bring in more than Joan. So if the task is just about money, as Joan argued, then she should be fired since she raised the least by far (which was not made clear on the show).

2) Say that the money didn’t matter so much as the show.

Well Joan argued against this as a criteria for firing but, even so, Joan should still be on the chopping block if we go this way. Joan sent Natalie to pick the jewelry when clearly that should have been Joan’s job. Joan made the decision, as project manager, to put all the donors on one piece of jewelry, insuring that some pieces would not sell which had to embarass Ivanka trump. Joan did not step in as auctioneer quickly enough. All around, Joan made a lot of mistakes in her decisions here.

Now if you go with (2) then you could also argue for Clint going since he really screwed up that auction. But Natalie seems to me to be in third place in terms of who to fire, by the criteria that Joan herself put forth. When they went in the boardroom, for all Joan’s tears, she never suggested that she was responsible for the loss (as pretty much every other project manager had). She allowed Natalie to take the fall, never once stepping in in her defense or suggesting, perhaps, that Clint might be another choice. Joan set the bus in motion and as soon as she had the chance, ran Natalie right under the wheels. Well done.

Now, I am going to quickly cover the Schwann’s Challenge. I will look at team Athena first. Jesse was project manager here and was somewhat hard to work with. I am a huge fan of Jesse’s but he really locked us out on the marketing side of things. On the food side, Jesse and I butted heads about what to make but, in the end, I agreed to cook all three dishes so we could have a taste test. Jesse was really pushing for the chili. The rest of us wanted the turkey meatballs because they were original and originality was a huge piece of the puzzle. I am glad I pushed so hard for that dish and that Melissa and Brande backed me up because the originality, in the end, was so important. One thing about me, I do push on things but only if I truly believe I am right and in this case I really felt strongly about the originality piece. I think Brande put it best, that Chili is something you can get out of any can but turkey meatballs with gluten free pasta was something unusual and different.

In terms of our marketing plan, I have to confess I was completely freaking out about it. Jesse did not share any details with us at all. I had really been in charge of the marketing plan on most of the challenges, that was kind of my niche. So I was having a Type A, control freak crisis about not seeing any of the marketing. I kept calming myself down by telling myself that I had complete faith in Jesse and Melissa to execute something great since they are both smart people. So imagine my surprise when I walked in that boardroom and found out we had no marketing plan at all! (That was the first I had heard about that). I wanted to die! Sometimes Type A control freaks have a right to be freaking out!

One thing that wasn’t shown was that Brande made an awesome dessert. For some reason it isn’t made clear in that episode that Brande made the dessert. I think it was the single best tasting thing we produced and the Schwann’s guys agreed.

On to KOTU: I think Clint made some really good points. I think he was absolutely right to say that chicken was not the way to go. We had discussed chicken on Athena and decided that too many of their dishes were already chicken dishes so it would not be judged original enough. Clint voiced his opinion about this but no one backed him up so he was over ruled. If originality is the reason they lose well Clint can’t be blamed for that. Clint also voiced very strong opinions about the dessert and, in fact, they were the exact opinions of the executives…that the dessert would not freeze well and would be complicated to package. Another point for Clint. Where Clint falls down on this episode is in the marketing plan. Clint went with a TV campaign but the executives made it clear that they do not advertize on TV (until this episode!). That was a big fall down on Clint’s part. But, on balance here, I think that Clint had more going for him on this challenge than against him.

When we got to the boardroom, Trump asked Melissa what she thought of how we did. Amazingly enough, she immediately ran down the food, saying that if we lost it would be because of the food! That was pretty cheeky from a woman in charge, with Jesse, of a marketing plan that never got produced. The question was really, in the end, whether our food was good enough and original enough to overcome the lack of any marketing campaign at all. And, apparently despite Melissa’s opinion that the food should have lost it for us, our food was so good and so original that we won the challenge depsite not even completing the marketing piece. They specifically cited the gluten free pasta and the use of turkey as very original and key in our win which vindicates my arguing so strongly for that piece. They also specifically cited Brande’s dessert in the taste category, saying it was the single best thing they had all day.

As for KOTU, they liked Clint’s chicken dish but hated the dessert and thought there was no originality to the food. They also felt the TV campaign was, in some ways, worse than the no campaign at all produced by Athena. So who should be fired? It seems like Joan is safe somewhat by fiat because she actually managed to make zero major decisions despite being on only a three man team. That leaves Clint and Herschel. Now, there are arguments both ways. If Trump feels the marketing piece ultimately caused the failure, then Clint must go. If Trump feels the lack of originality and the dessert caused the failure, then Herschel must go since Clint was on record in disagreeing strongly with those decisions. Ultimately, the marketing can’t have failed the task, really, since Athena did not even produce a marketing campaign to compare it too. Therefore, it must be the food and in that case Herschel must go. So Trump did the right thing here.

Next week, more good times as Joan calls Brande a dumb blonde and calls me and my friends white trash!

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Well, we all came out of the boardroom and found out Brian had been fired. No surprises there. What was a huge surprise was that we had to go right back in for the next task. I knew going into the boardroom that I was going to be PM of this task. Ivanka had rightly pointed out that I had no right criticizing Brande for not stepping up to the plate if I wasn’t stepping up as Project Manager. I completely agreed with her and said it was absolutely time to step up. And here is where I get lucky. I had been trying really hard to wait until we had a fundraising task to be PM. It was a long time between them and I agreed to PM before we knew what the task was. And, voila, how lucky is it that we are going to fundraise by selling Ivanka Trump Jewelry? Just as in poker, sometimes you get lucky on The Celebrity Apprentice. And I knew I could bring in the most money on my team so even if we lost it would be hard for me to be fired, my whole point in wanting to wait till a fundraising task to be PM.

Yes. I am a complete luckbox.

Herschel wanted to step up as PM on KOTU but Trump practically insisted Joan be PM. I think, in retrospect, that he wanted to see us fight it out since Joan had such acrimony towards me. That did not occur to me at the time, though. Herschel hadn’t won money for his charity yet. Joan had already won over $160K. So I really think Herschel should have been allowed to take this one. But Trump really wanted Joan and it is Trump’s show so she became PM opposite me.

So Athena immediately went into our boardroom and the first thing that happened is that I divided the tasks up right away to get everyone going. I had two goals on this: 1) I wanted to raise the most money because that is ultimately what we are judged on but 2) I also really wanted to put on a great auction and do Ivanka proud. I had grown to really like Ivanka and it is her jewelry we were going to be auctioning and I wanted to put on a show that would really showcase her jewelry well.

So I assigned everyone to fundraising (obviously) then I assigned Jesse to create the auction catalog and to manage the auction in terms of placing our donors in the audience and having plants in the audience to bid against our donors to make the auction seem truly real and exciting (Jesse’s idea 100%). Jesse grew up in the auction business so that part of the task really made sense for him. I assigned Melissa to pick all the jewelry and I assigned Brande to handle the models and the clothes. Melissa piped up at that point that she wanted to do that job as well which would have left Brande with no job. That clearly made no sense and when I insisted on Brande handling the models Melissa complained in a private interview with what has become a refrain for her: “This is what I do for a living.” Okay, I get that but Brande needed a job and she is a model so she seemed well qualified for that task.

This is where I get really impressed by Brande. I lobbed some pretty harsh criticism at her in the last boardroom. But instead of taking it personally, she took the criticism to heart. In fact, she agreed with me since she, herself, had admitted that was her strategy. And I immediately saw a huge change in Brande. A huge positive change in her. She really offered to step up, being incredibly proactive about getting clothes set aside for us at the store and getting the models’ headshots sent over right away. That was a huge time saver and she would not have done that the previous tasks so this was a big change. I am always the most impressed by people who are willing to own their mistakes and failures so they can learn and grow from them. And Brande was a shining example of this on this task. As I felt any good boss would do, I complimented Brande on all the good things she was doing. Rightly so, she was kicking ass and taking names and deserved the praise.

Melissa, however, did not feel the same. Apparently, the fact that Brande had been floating down the stream not really doing much on the previous tasks meant that I was not supposed to acknowledge the change in her on this task. I guess admitting when someone has really stepped up and put in renewed effort and leadership on a task is two faced in Melissa Rivers’ world. In my world it is just giving credit where credit is due and judging someone on their present performance rather than their past performance.

Brande and I had bonded early in the game and then had fallen out some over the previous two tasks. When I saw how much she changed in this task I completely renewed my respect for her and we really bonded and became really great friends. On the other hand, my respect for Melissa really eroded on this task because I saw how undermining she was of Brande at every chance and how divisive and disruptive she was.

When I stepped back as Project Manager, what I saw was really interesting. I saw that Melissa was trying as hard as she could to throw Brande under the bus, despite the fact that Brande was overall doing a really great job. Melissa shot down Brande’s ideas at every chance incessantly pointing out to me all the things Brande was doing wrong. Melissa should have just let me sit back and judge for myself instead of tattling on Brande all the time. I can see for myself what people are doing well and what they are not. Melissa did a great job picking out the jewelry. Brande was, indeed, too focused on her own outfit and Melissa did step up to the plate and pick up the slack. However, Melissa was also causing a lot of disruption on our team because of her sniping about Brande. I was particularly disturbed by Melissa’s comments about Brande in her private interviews which I think were, frankly, quite mean and uncalled for.

I also found Melissa and Joan’s private comments about my fundraising really telling. They seemed to give me no credit for just having really good friends. They attributed my fundraising ability to my being powerful in the poker world (which is not really true…there is really no such a thing as power since we all work for ourselves). They claimed that the people I called were just scared to say no to me. I will address that with a story. For this task, I called Scott Ian (the guitarist from Anthrax), Perry Friedman who had come out on the Wedding Dress Challenge and my brother, Howard Lederer. They all immediately agreed to come out and help me on this challenge. They all live on the west coast so were going to catch a 6 am flight to NYC. After I talked to them I went home and went to bed. When I woke up at 5 am my friend, Andy Bloch, IM’ed me. He had heard from Perry and Howard that I was looking to raise money and asked me why I hadn’t called him. I told him I was really only calling people who could do $25K or more on this one and we had only discussed a $5K donation before (I had talked to him on the Wedding Dress Challenge). He told me of course he would do $20 to $25K and that he was getting on the same flight as the other guys! I have some pretty freaking kick ass friends and I frankly think it says more about the Rivers personal relationships than mine that they couldn’t fathom that anyone would come donate to me just because they like me.

Anyway, everyone on my team was doing a great job and the team was working really well (despite the fact that Melissa and Brande were having problems and Melissa was having problems with my renewed friendship with and respect for Brande). Jesse, as usual, did his job quietly and really well. The auction booklet he created was ridiculously great. The jewelry Melissa picked out was beautiful. And the models were set.

Now, on KOTU everyone was working really hard to fundraise. But I think they were worried that with me and Brande working together (Brande had raised a ton in the previous shows) that Athena was going to be tough to beat. So they made a decision that I find somewhat mindboggling. Clint came up with the idea to pool all the donors on to the least expensive piece. If a piece didn’t sell, then the wholesale price of that piece would not be deducted against the total amount raised. So they figured that that would create the most profit for them. But what it would also create, it my opinion, is embarrassment for Ivanka when only 1 of the 5 pieces of her jewelry sold at her auction. Joan agreed to this stratgey which I think is in poor judgement. You will have to watch the next episode to see how that one plays out.

Natalie was sent off to pick out the jewelry. First, I am not sure why Joan did not do that job. She owns a jewelry company after all. I have no idea why she sent Natalie, who has no experience with that. But she did. So Natalie Gulbis gets deeply criticized by Joan for picking jewelry that was not flashy. But Natalie was picking pieces that she knew her donors wanted to buy because she had not been informed of their strategy change to put all the donors on one piece. So I think the criticism of Natalie was deeply unfair here. I think it was a bad decision to assign her in the first place since Joan should have done that part and she was getting pieces her donors wanted anyway, and isn’t that the point?

Anyway, Natalie calls Phil Hellmuth to get him to donate to KOTU. Phil is the most famous poker player in the world and we happen to not only work together but we also are good friends. You will have to see whether or not Phil comes through for Natalie on the next episode. Again, another cliffhanger you will have to tune in for.

So, tune in next week to see of Phil screws me over and to see if KOTU’s strategy to create the most profit for their auction works. Also, find out how Piers Morgan plays into the episode and why I get compared to Hitler! Fun times all around.

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