Celebrity Poker: Don Cheadle

Ante Up for Africa co-founder Don Cheadle has signed on a renonwed online poker room Full Tilt Poker. Celebrity poker player Don Cheadle is one of the world’s leading actors and has appeared in the hit movie “Crash” as well as the “Oceans Eleven” trilogy. Don Cheadle may not have much, if anything, for major tournament cashes, but he's no stranger to poker. He's played in televised events such as the NBC National Heads-Up Championship and Celebrity Poker Shoot-Out.

The poker world sat up and took notice in 2007 when he was paired against Phil Ivey in the first round of the NBC National Heads-Up Championship and managed to defeat one of the game's best pros. He went on to lose in Round 2 to Scott Fischman. NBC invited him back in 2008 and 2009 to participate again. In 2008, Don Cheadle was out in the first round after losing to Gus Hansen, but in 2009 he held his own against David Pham in the first round before being defeated in Round 2 by Paul Wasicka.

Celebrity poker player Don Cheadle, along with poker pro and Celebrity Apprentice finalist Annie Duke and Norman Epstein, created the charity tournament to benefit the humanitarian efforts in Sudan. Charities such as “The Enough Project”, “Not on Our Watch” and the “International Rescue Committee” have been awarded over $2 million in donations as a result of Ante Up for Africa events.

“I’ve done alright in the televised tourneys I’ve participated in and I’ve won several tournaments around town. I have yet to play in the WSOP events, but I hope my schedule will permit me to do so in the future,” said Don Cheadle.

About Don Cheadle: Being recognized by a major publication as a cool dude would definitely up his sex appeal factor as far as the ladies are concerned, He made his big-screen debut in 1985's Moving Violations and landed guest roles on shows like Fame, L.A. Law and Hill Street Blues before appearing in the 1987 Vietnam War-drama Hamburger Hill.

Don Cheadle is known for his roles in a number of high-profile films, including Boogie Nights in 1997, Traffic in 2000, Hotel Rwanda in 2004, Crash in 2005, and Traitor in 2008. He also portrays Basher Tarr in the Ocean's Eleven series and cowrote Not On Our Watch: The Mission To End Genocide In Darfur And Beyond in 2007.

In 2002, Don Cheadle found himself back on TV guesting on The Bernie Mac Show, MAD TV and episodes of ER. He added a number of high-profile movie roles to his resume in 2004, including appearances in Ocean's Twelve for which he earned Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations. In 2005, he coproduced and costarred with Sandra Bullock and Matt Dillon which picked up the Oscar for Best Picture of 2006.

Moved by the horrific situations in Darfur and Rwanda, Don Cheadle spent the next couple of years campaigning for an end to the genocide. That same year, he costarred with Adam Sandler in Reign Over Me, and logged in another appearance as Basher in Ocean's Thirteen. As for blockbusters on the horizon, Don Cheadle has been tapped to replace Terence Howard as Col. James "Rhodey" Rhodes and the silver Iron Man in the Iron Man franchise with Robert Downey Jr.

Don Cheadle will make his directorial debut with the adaptation of Elmore Leonard's Tishomingo Blues. He also appeared in NFL commercials promoting the Super Bowl from 2002–2005. Don Cheadle has been in a relationship with actress Bridgid Coulter since the early-90s; they have two daughters, Ayana and Imani.

Victoria “Vicky” Coren: European Poker Hottie

A fascinating author, journalist, TV personaliy and a poker player, take your pick and put them in any order. Vicky Coren is one of the poker hottie stopped all the bad boys fighting at school and made them all be friends again. She looks good, likes a cigarette and plays poker that pretty much ticks all the boxes of every bad boy in town. Who can resist that!

Victoria “Vicky” Coren is a talented player, one who has a major win to her credit. A true new dawn woman, she is famous for a great deal outside the poker world. Victoria Coren has been playing poker for 15 years, since she was a teenager. She is primarily a cash player, based at the Grosvenor Victoria Casino in London, but has been taking part in international tournaments since 2001.

She has impressed onlookers and rivals with her sophisticated play at this years European Poker Tournament (EPT) event in London. Victoria has cashed in several major tournaments at “The Vic” and was the winner of the 2004 Celebrity Poker Challenge. And off course the 1st ever woman to win an EPT event.

Vicky Coren was also one of the regulars in the original few series of Late Night Poker as well as the champion of one of the first celebrity poker shows, Celebrity Poker Club, which wouldn’t normally be a big determinant of skill but the final table did feature Steve Davis, Barry Hearn, Norman Pace and Willie Thorne, all of whom are serious poker players. Coren also presented a number of poker shows, including more recent series of Late Night Poker.

Off the poker table, Vicky Coren writes for a range of British newspapers, has written 3 books and presents various radio and TV programmes for the BBC and Channel 4. She is a presenter of the BBC show Balderdash and Piffle, and BBC Radio’s Off the Page. Her television and writing skills alone would make her a fabulously successful person.

Vicky Coren is a true asset for PokerStars. Also, a highly visible as both a poker journalist, who writes weekly columns for "The Observer" and "The Guardian". Though Vicky Coren isn't as well known in the US, however, she is one the top ten poker hotties in Europe. With her charming poker skills makes her appealing as a hottest poker player.

Vicky Coren is now the second highest earning female tournament player in England and 11th highest female poker player in the world, which is remarkable considering she is predominantly a cash game player and doesn’t play many tournaments. Victoria has earned the respect of fans and her fellow pro players. She is a member of Team PokerStars Pro and plays online poker using the screen name ‘Vicky Coren’.

Vicky Coren may be as much a great journalist and a poker player, but make no mistake Vicky Coren is a true hot poker player and will always be one of the favorites all over the world at any table she sits at.

Vicky Coren's Photos

Celebrity Poker: Jessica Simpson

I think half the celebrities in the world must play poker, as can be seen on various TV shows specially devoted to this, now they're heading up for the celebrity charity poker tournaments. One of the promising scorching hot celebrity poker player now with the flash texas hold'em poker game endorser is Jessica Simpson.

Jessica Simpson used to be famous for being the believable virgin of the turn-of-the-millennium teenage pop sensations; she's more famous these days for being "sexual napalm", thanks to ex-boyfriend John Mayer's remarks to Playboy. For better or for worse, Jessica Simpson's ex-boyfriend John Mayer beat her to the punch when he told Playboy magazine in an interview that Simpson was "sexual napalm." Simpson responded to Mayer's remarks on Oprah by saying that, she doesn't “want people to know how [she’s] in bed.” Fair enough. 

 

With this background, it was only normal for young Jessica Simpson to participate in church activities and so she sang in the choir. Such was her gift that at the age of 12, she auditioned for The Mickey Mouse Club. When she reached the finals, she froze and choked completely. Unfortunately, she didn't get the job. 

 

Jessica Simpson sang and sold her home-recorded album after performances. This was a winning formula and while she was still in junior high, Jessica was performing with famous gospel acts like Kirk Franklin and Ce Ce Winans. It wasn't only Christian music fans who got into her music; pop lovers everywhere were being charmed by her voice. This was just the encouragement Jessica needed to pursue a middle-of-the-road pop music career. Sure enough, news of Jessica's success reached important people in the industry. Tommy Mottola of Columbia Records/Sony Music was one of them and he was stunned by Jessica Simpson's voice and skills. 

   
After signing up with the music giant, her debut album, Sweet Kisses, was released in 1999, giving way to the singles "I Wanna Love You Forever" and "I Think I'm In Love With You." She then hit the road and showed audiences worldwide what the Jessica Simpson craze was all about. Jessica Simpson joined boy band 98 Degrees on its tour and it didn't take long for her to fall in love with one of its members, Nick Lachey. Their budding romance only helped the release of their duet, "Where You Are," of Sweet Kisses.

 In June 2001, her sophomore album Irresistible was released. The title track was a smash hit and it went as high as No. 3 on the Top 40 chart. After some remixes, her third album In This Skin was released in August 2003. However, Jessica Simpson's life was about to take a drastic turn. Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey finally got married in October 2002, and the celebrity marriage was rejoiced in gossip columns everywhere. As a result, MTV offered the couple a reality show based on their everyday life as a couple, much like The Osbournes.

The deal was struck and August 2003 marked the debut of Newlyweds: Nick & Jessica. Although the show overshadowed Jessica Simpson's new album, it became an incredible hit and it was picked up for second and third seasons. 

 

Around the time of her marriage to Nick, Jessica Simpson appeared in three episodes of That '70s Show between 2002 and 2003 as Kelso's love interest. She also appeared on The Twilight Zone in 2002, all of which led the way for her 2005 big-screen debut wearing sexy "Daisy Dukes" in the film version of The Dukes of Hazzard (costarring Johnny Knoxville and Seann William Scott). The film coincided with the release of Jessica Simpson's remake of Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots Are Made For Walking." In 2006, she appeared in Dane Cook's film Employee of the Month.

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Jennifer “Unabombshell” Tilly: Celebrity Poker Hottie

Jennifer Tilly is the modish celebrity poker hottie making shakes in the women's poker circuit. She made history when she became the first Hollywood star to take home a World Series of Poker gold bracelet Ladies' No Limit Hold'em event. She then broke records again by finishing the invitational 2005 World Poker Tour Ladies night. Her WPT win made her the first woman to win both the major World Poker Tour and World Series Of Poker women's events.

Jennifer Tilly has been best known as an actress, having performed on top of 100 movies and television shows such as Bound, Bride of Chucky, and Liar Liar. Tilly is most known for her appearance in Woody Allen’s Bullets Over Broadway, in which Tilly was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Jennifer Tilly has also done a lot of voice-over work including roles such as the killer doll Tiffany in Child’s Play, and as the voice of the Griffin Family’s neighbor Bonnie in the hit TV show, Family Guy.

Jennifer Tilly became stitch up with poker in the same way that many other Hollywood celebrities have in the last few years, through playing on television celebrity poker programs. She has appeared on Game Show Network’s Poker Royale as well as on Poker Superstars III, where she was busted in the preliminaries. Other TV appearances include Bravo’s Celebrity Poker Showdown and ESPN’s Pro-Am Poker Equalizer, where she appeared as a celebrity.

She became the hottest poker player during her break out performance in the ladies No Limit Texas Holdem World Series Of Poker in 2005 when she won the title and took home the $156,825.

Jennifer Tilly outlasted 600 women including She outlasted some tough players, including touring pro Isabelle "No Mercy" Mercier WPT Season 2 Ladies Night champion, Cecelia Mortensen tournament player and wife of 2001 WSOP champion Carlos Mortensen and Aidiliy Elviro fiancee of Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi to earn that WSOP bracelet and showed the poker world she was not a one time fluke on September 2005 by winning the 3rd World Poker Tour Ladies Invitational Tournament at the Bicycle Casino in Los Angeles. Jennifer Tilly's WSOP success made her the first non-poker celebrity to win a World Series of Poker bracelet.

During an interview on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Jennifer Tilly said, “I was astonished too. As it started to approach the moment where I thought I might possibly be winning a new piece of jewelry, I was freaking out. And you know, I had almost all the chips, I had like 1,300 chips and the other girl had maybe, um, 57 chips. And I was like, I know because I'm on ESPN and the cameras are on me, there's going to be some way I'm going to lose my entire stack in one hand. But it didn't happen”.

Jennifer Tilly take advantages of an aggressive style that can be daunting. She manage to do well in tournament play. She’s an exceptionally intelligent celebrity gone sexy poker hottie who uses her smarts in a sagacious manner. She’s gone from being a celebrity poker player to a professional in a relatively short amount of time. And she’s gone from being a professional into retirement in an even shorter amount of time.

As Jennifer Tilly told Bluff Magazine in 2008, “I’m not giving up poker entirely — gambling is an addiction after all. I’m just going to treat it more like a hobby and less like a career."

Jennifer Tilly's Photos

Celebrity Poker: Milla Jovovich

Think celebrities do nothing but party all night at discos, binge drink, and get divorced? Think again. Celebrities more often prefer to stay at home for a quiet evening of board and card games like poker with their friends, just like Milla Jovovich.

Milla Jovovich is a supermodel, actress, musician, and fashion designer of Russian-Serbian- Montenegrin origin. Over her career, she has appeared in a number of science fiction and action themed films, for which music channel VH1 has referred to her as the “reigning queen of kick-butt” In 2004, Milla Jovovich was ranked #69 on Maxim magazine’s “Top 100 Hot List” and ranked #82 in 2005. Maxim also named her #11 on their list of “Hottest Nerd Crushes”. In 2008, she was ranked #90 on Ask Men’s Top 99 Women of 2008 List.

It goes without saying that celebrity poker player Milla Jovovich possesses an incredible amount of sex appeal, as befits her status as a former supermodel. In addition to her gig as a professional clothes horse, Milla established herself as a sexual being early on thanks to roles in risque projects like 1998’s Two Moon Junction and 1991’s Return to the Blue Lagoon. Even when she embarked on her music career in 1994, Milla Jovovich relied on her sexuality to grab the attention of the masses -- as evidenced by the sultry video for the single “Gentleman Who Fell.”

Milla Jovovich is the action hero after the last action hero, and she has become a huge star on the ultrawide screen by alternately threatening the world and saving it in films such as The Fifth Element in 1997, UltraViolet and the Resident Evil series. Milla Jovovich has been one of the stranger career arcs of our time: From being a child star and then taking over the Brooke Shields nymphette franchise, she moved on to supermodeldom, then became an independent film actress and ultimately an unlikely kick-ass superwoman who seems to have taken over the Stallone-Willis-Schwarzenegger saving-the-world business.

Though she spent the first five years of her life in the Soviet Union, Milla Jovovich and her family relocated to the United States and eventually settled down in Los Angeles. Her parents split up a short time later, and Milla’s mother -- a performer in her native Kiev -- briefly attempted to make a living as an actress before eventually taking on house-cleaning jobs. 

Though Milla Jovovich picked up English within three months of moving to America, she found that many of her peers picked on her because of her accent and her communist background. 

Milla Jovovich’s striking looks were in place virtually since birth, and by the time she was 9 years old, she had become a fixture within the modeling world’s auditioning circuit. After being signed by the Prima Modeling Agency, Milla Jovovich began popping up in a variety of print ads and other campaigns -- though it wasn’t until famed photographer Richard Avedon discovered Milla that big things started to happen for her. 

She was immediately placed alongside two other models in a campaign for Revlon makeup, and Milla Jovovich quickly found herself being asked to pose for such prestigious names as Donna Karan and Versace.

Milla Jovovich has played Joan of Arc, a supreme being, and a genetically transformed superweapon and/or savior, but this year she’s kicking butt in a more down-to-earth way, in MGM’s The Perfect Getaway, in which she plays a terrorized honeymooner who strikes back, and in The 4th Kind, a conspiracy-theory thriller set in Alaska. She’s also shooting Keep Coming Back, the directorial debut of the great actor William H. Macy, where she plays a former stripper.

Milla Jovovich’s stint as Alice in the hugely popular Resident Evil series only confirmed her A-list status.

Celebrity Poker: Woody Harrelson

Woody Harrelson could so easily have remained the adorable goof behind America’s favorite bar forever. It’s hard to believe now, but for a while playing Woody Boyd on the sitcom Cheers seemed like the summit of Harrelson’s career. But the Texas-born yearling made quick work of landing choice film roles in Hollywood after the iconic Boston bar shut down operations in 1993.

Woody Harrelson went from starring in one of the most violent, experimental, and relentlessly criticized films of the 1990s Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers to starring in one of the most violent, experimental, and universally praised films of the the Coen brothers’ No Country for Old Men in 2007, with an Oscar-nominated turn as Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt in Milos Forman’s The People vs. Larry Flynt in between. 

 

Celebrity poker player Woody Harrelson has had an unpredictable, brilliantly bipolar career that no one—let alone the actor himself—could have anticipated. A handful of his roles in new films are equally disparate: Woody Harrelson plays a gratuitous, slapstick zombie-slayer in the satirical walking-dead comedy Zombieland; a loose-cannon doomsday prophet in the upcoming disaster epic 2012; and a casualty notification officer in the somber military drama The Messenger. It’s this last film, though, that Woody Harrelson seems to have particularly treated as a labor of love. He talks to his friend and poker partner Owen Wilson about The Messenger, as well as speeding, losing at poker, jumping out at roommates, and a number of other eccentricities he’s managed to pick up over the years.

OWEN WILSON: Hey, buddy.

WOODY HARRELSON: Hey.

WILSON: Where are you?

HARRELSON: I’m in the beloved state of Hawaii. Maui.

WILSON: Where?

HARRELSON: I’m at your house. [laughs] No, I’m up in my house.

WILSON: Sounds like you’ve had a good run of poker there. Last you said, you won three games in a row?

HARRELSON: Yeah, three times in a row. That never happens. But I’m also managing to pull the chute a little earlier and get the hell out before I give it all back and start writing chits.

WILSON: That’s always been the scouting report on you in poker: Not a lot of discipline. So I’m glad to see that you’re learning how to walk away.

HARRELSON: Yeah, I’ve got to look at your scouting report sometime.

WILSON: We’re probably the two worst players in that Maui poker game.

HARRELSON: It’s not that. We’re just the most trusting.

WILSON: We’re the most optimistic, the most hopeful.

HARRELSON: We believe in our own luck.

WILSON: It’s such a cast of characters that play in that Maui poker game. I remember our one friend saying it looked like the bar scene from Star Wars.

HARRELSON: Those guys are scoundrels, man. They sit there and pick you clean.

About Woody Harrelson: Woody Harrelson is quickly becoming America’s most versatile actor. Since getting his big break as dimwitted bartender Woody Boyd in 1985, this cagey star has convincingly played everything from a murderous psychopath to a crippled porn magnate to a lasso-wielding cowboy. And he’s done it with panache, infusing all of his characters with an authenticity seldom seen in American cinema. It’s little wonder then that he’s been nominated for a pair of Oscars and Golden Globes and has won an Emmy, an American Comedy Award, an MTV Movie Award, and an NBR from The National Board of Review. 

Woody Harrelson picked up right where he left off in 1994 with starring roles in three films including I’ll Do Anything, The Cowboy Way and Natural Born Killers. Although the first two films received little attention, Natural Born Killers became an international phenomenon, thanks to its use of gratuitous violence and its biting condemnation of mass media. 

 Woody Harrelson returned to more standard fare over the next two years in the entertaining buddy comedies Money Train in 1995 and Kingpin in 1996 before breaking the mold yet again in 1996 as the titular porn magnate in The People vs. Larry Flynt. The provocative film was a huge hit with critics and earned Harrelson his first Oscar nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role. 

 

Woody Harrelson rounded out the decade with performances in a dizzying array of films. He played an emotionally disturbed military prisoner in Wag the Dog in 1997, an unlucky ex-con in Palmetto in 1998, a battle-hardened sergeant in The Thin Red Line in 1998), an opportunistic screw-up in Edtv in 1999 and an aging boxer in Play it to the Bone in 1999). He also picked up his sixth Emmy Award nomination in 1999 after reuniting with his Cheers cast mate Kelsey Grammer for a hilarious episode of Frasier. In fact, Harrelson enjoyed his brief return to the small screen so much that he signed on to play Debra Messing's boyfriend, Nathan, in seven episodes of Will and Grace in 2001. 

Woody Harrelson has continued to show off his versatility in recent years by playing a lasso-swinging cowboy in A Prairie Home Companion in 2006, an ambitionless junkie in A Scanner Darkly in 2006, a prim male escort in The Walker in 2007, a washed-up basketball player in Semi-Pro in 2008, a blind piano player in Seven Pounds in 2008, a bounty hunter in No Country for Old Men in 2007, Management with Jennifer Aniston and Steve Zahn, 2012 an enthusiastic slayer of the undead in the surprise hit Zombieland in 2009 and his heroic movie Defendor.

Celebrity Poker: Vin Diesel

Vin Diesel has the obvious attributes that make women weak in the knees. With his box office movies, a great body, a manly voice and a poker shark! Celebrity poker player VinDiesel was once spotted at the 2nd Annual Dewar's 12 Texas Hold 'em Poker Tournament will be held in a prime, beachfront property located on the private island of Indian Creek Village, Florida. The upscale gathering will be about more than just poker, however; the night will also include a fashion show and jewelry exhibition. 

 

And to give the night an added Vegas feel, the poker party will have its fair share of showgirls and dancers. Ther proof of this is in the list of heavyweight names slated to attend A-Rod's forthcoming charity poker tournament, which will benefit the Boys & Girls Clubs of Miami. Among the over 300 players expected to compete in the tournament are Michael Jordan, Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter, Lenny Kravitz, Vin Diesel, Gary Sheffield and, of course, Alex Rodriguez. Poker pro Phil Hellmuth will also be on hand to show the stars and other guests how the game is really played. 

 

About Vin Diesel: Vin Diesel's list of credits is still relatively short, but that is only due to the fact that he got his big break in acting well into his thirties. However, the very nature of his movies and the wide young audiences they attract, have caused him to have a huge following internationally. He is in fact more famous than his work justifies. At least movie studios have caught on to that little piece of information. He got $10 million to star in XXX, a comedy action movie The Pacifier,a sort of spy movie, after The Fast &; The Furious garnered $145 million in US domestic sales at a modest $38 million production budget. 

 

Before his name skyrocketed in the Hollywood scene, Vin Diesel's acting career occurred when he was 7. He and his friends had broken into a local theater, and rather than getting caught and reprimanded for trespassing, Vin Diesel and his buds were handed scripts and were offered $20 dollars per week, on the condition that they show up after school every day. This served as his first "real" paying job. 
 

However, his road to success wasn't paved with good luck and fortune. The closest he came to acting professionally was in a Theatre of the New City production, in addition to several very off Broadway plays. Vin Diesel had to take on jobs such as bouncer at several exclusive New York City nightclubs in order to finance his film dreams. He had taken matters into his own hands when he left Hunter College in New York in the midst of studying for an English degree, in order to get an earlier start in filmmaking.

When his mother brought home the book Feature Films at Used Car Prices in order to encourage Vin Diesel, it pushed him to take control of his destiny and create his own movies in which to star. He did, and his filmmaking, writing, producing, and starring role in the film short Multi-Facial (based on his experiences of trying to make it as an actor) screened at Cannes Film Festival in 1995. It received positive reviews, and the extremely low-budget film -- at a cost of $3,000 in a total of three days of shooting -- led to bigger things. 

 

Despite the lackluster success of his next independent feature, Strays, which was a Sundance entry in 1997, his performance in Multi-Facial was noticed by a certain important person in Hollywood. A well-known director and producer Steven Spielberg caught his performance in Mutli-Facial and created the role of Private 1st Class Adrian Caparzo in Saving Private Ryan for Vin Diesel. He also impressed the director of the animated film, The Iron Giant, and thanks to his guttural voice, he was cast as the voice of the title character in the 1999 film.

While it took a while for Vin Diesel to convince filmmakers to take him seriously, 2000 was a year of star-making roles for the actor. Two of his films opened on the same weekend -- the sci-fi Pitch Black and drama Boiler Room -- two roles that couldn't be more different in the acting range. Vin Diesel added yoga and pilates to his regular workout for his Pitch Black role as Riddick, while he saw his scummy role as Chris the telemarketer in Boiler Room as a way of redeeming himself for the job he once held as a telemarketer, selling overpriced tools. 
 

The Fast and Furious is the working title to an upcoming film in the The Fast and the Furious film series, the fourth produced but sequel to the first and second and prequel to the third. The film is currently in production and is scheduled for release in mid-2009. The plot connects with the original film of the series from which Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez, and Jordana Brewster are reprising their roles.

It was in the summer of 2001 that Vin Diesel proved he could draw in audiences as a leading man in the testosterone pumped The Fast and the Furious. With 4 sequels, the film was tops at the box office and took in millions, and served to prove Vin Diesel's star appeal even further. After a low-key role in 2001's Knockaround Guys, fans gathered to see Vin Diesel in XXX, costarring fellow intimidator Samuel L. Jackson, and The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay, which was released in '04 and which Vin Diesel had a hand in writing.