Jennifer Tilly is an actress / professional poker player, and I’ve had a crush on her for as long as I can remember, motivated largely in part by her sex-syrup voice and her bodacious style consisting often of corsets and crazy hot shoes. She is a dumb blonde grrl genius wrapped in a hot brunette package, and I don’t hold that against her.  Even more so, knowing her penchant for holding ‘em Texas style, I like her even more. 

I hadn’t played poker (without losing a significant portion of my clothes) until this last year.  It never occurred to me that the game had any level of substance beyond what people do when they are at a party and want an excuse to see each other naked, instead of the direct…”hey let’s get naked” approach.  Alas, it is a game that is played with an intensely required awareness of subtleties, intelligent rendering of what you want people to think, and a giant set of balls.

Saturday night poker with some fellow poker playing metro geek friends of ours has become a semi regular and beloved event in our household though, try as I might, I don’t think my balls will ever big enough to bring home the poker bacon.   The upside is three fold; 1.  I am learning how to play a fine game of poker, 2. It’s as fun and as enjoyable as going out for an evening spending a lot more then I spend on the buy-in, and 3. there is always something to watch on tv, since the WSOP for every year in history plays repeatedly on cable. 

Trivia:  Jennifer was the winner of the Ladies-Only No Limit Texas Hold ‘Em event at the World Series of Poker in 2005, becoming the first celebrity to win an open (as opposed to celebrity-only) WSOP tournament and earn a World Series bracelet. She beat out 600 other women to win the championship.

So, if you’ve never played poker before, and want some motivation to join the Saturday night festivities with Gametart and friends, just imagine Jen across the table; look into those eyes…eyes people, I said eyes….and hear that one of a kind sultry voice oooozze out the words, “I’m all in.”    Here are more gratuitous Jen pics, and a list of some screen accomplishments for added character value to support my crush of the month.

 Kiss Kiss,

Dawngrrl Gametart