Tilting on Celebrity Apprentice
Monday, April 13, 2009 - Annie Duke
Oh…no…not me. I don’t tilt when I am playing a game. I might walk away from the game and then get pissed off…but never during. Apparently, Melissa Rivers hasn’t played as much poker as I have because that girl is on tilt. And I want all the poker players watching Celebrity Apprentice to take note of Melissa’s completely tilty meltdown so they will stop freaking tilting at the tables. Melissa offers a great demonstration of how allowing emotions to rule your game decisions never results in anything good.
So, here is why Melissa is tilting. Melissa knows that if I am friends with Brande that it is bad for her. Jesse is a very strong player so it feels unlikely that Trump is going to fire him any time soon. I have been playing a strong game and I can raise money so ditto for me. That leaves Brande and Melissa as the vulnerable ones on our team. If I am unwilling to throw Brande under the bus, if I side with her, then Melissa is the likely person to go. That sent Melissa (and Joan) on a tilt like I have only ever seen from the likes of Phil!
The problem is that Joan and Melissa both directed their tilt at me. Now, first, they are spitting vitriol my way because apparently they think it is my job to save Melissa. But it is not my job to save her, that would be Melissa’s job to save Melissa. And Melissa’s reaction is counterproductive to playing the game well. She is now completely reacting (with her emotional, limbic brain) rather than planning how to stay in the game.
Every time she goes after Brande I see it. Every time she rolls her eyes or shrieks for attention I see it. Instead of settling down and working her ass off to make sure she is safe in the boardroom, she is going after Brande in a nasty, personal way (behind her back). And her attempts to be nice to Brande’s face are thinly veiled because she is too emotional to contain herself. Not a good strategy.
Compare that to Brande’s non-tilt. I was never going to recommend that Melissa go before Brande because I felt that Melissa was the stronger asset to the team. In the boardroom during the Lifelock task I made that clear. After I criticized Brande, though, she did not tilt. Instead she took a breath and realized the comments were valid (after all she had said she was drafting along behind the stronger personalities herself!). So when push came to shove she didn’t get pissed off, she didn’t tilt. Instead she just addressed the criticism and stopped doing the drafting. She started taking a leadership role, being proactive, being an asset to the team. I saw that and became her ally. Why? Because there is nothing that impresses me more than a person who admits their mistakes and learns from them. Go Brande!
So what a study in contrasts. Brande remained unemotional and redeveloped her strategy to great effect. Melissa tilted and flailed about, hurting her chances in the game because she was unable to calm down and stop letting the tilt drive her choices. Take note of this poker players. I am not sure you will see a better example in a game of why tilting is so dangerous to a successful outcome.
Play poker like Brande, not like Melissa.
Tags: Brande Roderick, Celebrity Apprentice, Joan Rivers, Melissa Rivers
