Weekend Plans: Clay Plays Celeb Poker, Buckster Busts Move?

BUCK: I’m going back to New York to go to my brother’s wedding.

CLAY: Which should be fun. We’ll talk about it. You’re vaccinated now. You’re safe.

BUCK: Yeah, hopefully they’re not gonna make me get a booster at the front door.

CLAY: (laughing)

BUCK: You know, “We now pronounce you man and… Wait. Where is your booster shot?” So, that’s cool. But Clay is gonna be doing his poker.

CLAY: Poker debut. This is gonna be… As soon as we finish the show, I’m hopping a flight to Vegas. I got invited to be in a — and “celebrity” is in quotation marks here, right? But I’m in a celebrity poker challenge, Poker After Dark. It’s a charity event. It’s gonna air eventually on cable. I’m not sure the date. I’ll tell you guys about it. But there are several different professional poker players at the table.

And, Buck, I’m in there with Senator Ted Cruz, Michael Phelps (the Olympian), one of the top WWE wrestlers, because SummerSlam is taking place in Vegas this weekend. I’m not sure when to the wrestler is going to be. And then the one that has blown my kids’ mind, a YouTube guy named MrBeast, who has, like, 60 million subscribers. My kids, MrBeast is the most famous person in their world. When I told them, they can’t stop talking about it. I have no idea. I’ve just watched the videos with them. So, those are the “celebrities” that will be sitting at the table going up against the poker pros.

BUCK: That was the longest line I have ever seen for anything in New York City.

CLAY: YouTubers? Yes.

BUCK: I remember I walked up to the line. It was blocks and blocks and blocks long, and it was a meet-and-greet with an 18-year-old YouTuber who does makeup tutorials, thousands of people waiting in line. I have never seen that. I was like, really? This is… Maybe it was hundreds, but it felt like thousands. The line went on forever. What is it, 60 million, 80 million followers?

CLAY: Sixty million supposedly follow him on YouTube. My kids watch every minute of his videos.

BUCK: What’s your game plan? Are you trying to monitor the other guys for the tics and the tells?

CLAY: So, I don’t think I can read professional poker players. My hope is to outlast Cruz, Phelps, MrBeast, or the WWE player. I don’t want to come in last.

BUCK: If you outlast Ted Cruz, I’m just gonna tell you…

CLAY: Yeah?

BUCK: If you outlast Senator Cruz he’s probably gonna challenge you to a one-on-one basketball game and televise it because you remember he threw down Jimmy Kimmel at basketball and Ted Cruz got game. Let’s just be honest. That is the truth.

CLAY: He’s a big sportsman, Ted Cruz. So, I’ve never met Cruz in person. We’ve had him on the show a couple of times. So, that will be fun. And it’s gonna be televised. You know, for people who watch the poker on television, you can see everybody’s cards.

BUCK: Why do people watch poker on television?

CLAY: Because of the way they have the ability to see everybody’s cards. The ratings for it are crazy. People love it. So, it means that if I really play poker poorly, I’m gonna get destroyed ’cause everybody will see my hand and say, “Why did you fold? Why didn’t you hit?”

BUCK: Is Travis gonna hit with the outfit here, Clay? Because we can’t have another polo shirt incident.

CLAY: I didn’t even know. I don’t want to be fat and ugly, or even more fat and ugly than I am already.

BUCK: What happens if you win? What’s the charity?

CLAY: I’m not even sure what the charity event is.

BUCK: Okay. Well, it’s for good things.

CLAY: It’s for good things, yeah, as opposed to bad things. But I don’t want to lose and lose all the money for the charity.

BUCK: Are you good at this? ‘Cause I go to Vegas every year for a big conference. I’ll be there this year. I go to Vegas. There’s this part of me that’s like, “Oh, I don’t know what I’m doing,” but then there’s that part of you that’s the same way everyone thinks they’ll be good in a fight.

CLAY: Until you actually get punched.

BUCK: Yeah, and then you realize, “Oh, gosh, this is really hard.” I think I’m gonna be good at gambling and then I show up and once I’ve dropped three or four hundred dollars, to me I just think in terms of either like steaks or pad thai delivery orders. I’m like, “This is no longer fun.” Are you a gambling guy?

CLAY: I tend to get crushed. I love to gamble, so I’ve got the gambling television show. Most of that is sports gambling on individual games — football, basketball, all that stuff. I haven’t been in a poker game where there’s money at stake in 15 years. I used to. When I was a young lawyer, there was a group that would get together and play, and I would go and have a few beers and sit around the table and have fun. This could be an epic disaster and I could get destroyed.

BUCK: If Ted Cruz cleans you out —

CLAY: Oh, no doubt.

BUCK: — in one hand, we are having him on the show just to make fun of you. That has to happen.

CLAY: And people be able to watch it on television. It’s not like I’m gonna get wrecked and then nobody will see it. It will be on TV. They’ll clip it, they’ll share it on social, it will be everywhere.

BUCK: Maybe for our EIB 24/7 folks, by the way… This may surprise you, but the Buckster’s got some dance moves.

CLAY: (laughing) That is so funny. (laughing)

BUCK: So, for the wedding weekend that I’m going to here, my little brother Keats is getting married to a wonderful young woman named Ali, and she will be a member of my family as of Saturday afternoon officially. So we got a big ceremony, over a hundred people coming to New York City.

CLAY: I will be stunned if you’re a great dancer.

BUCK: Clay, I’m telling you man, Gangnam Style? You throw anything. That deejay bust out those funky tunes, and people don’t even know what kind of funk Buck can bring.

CLAY: I hope that somebody has picked your outfit for the wedding —

BUCK: Black tie. Black tie. Black tie.

CLAY: — ’cause based on the photo out there —

BUCK: That’s the thing, black tie is the uniform.

CLAY: You can’t screw it up. That’s why men all have to dress the same, because women don’t trust us at weddings, right?

BUCK: It makes sense!

CLAY: We have to be all the same. I get it.

BUCK: It makes sense. Plus, I’m not gonna do the Dumb and Dumber thing of showing up in —

CLAY: The crazy-color tuxedo? Yes.

BUCK: — the tangerine orange tuxedo with the ruffles … or am I? That could be kind of fun.

CLAY: That would be a hell of a move. That’s a great Halloween costume, by the way.

BUCK: Well, Clay is going to win or lose a lot of money for the charity.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: That is the plan for the charity, and I’m back in New York tomorrow. Clay, where are you gonna be?

CLAY: I’m gonna in a Vegas studio.

BUCK: There you go.

CLAY: I’ll be on from 9 to noon West Coast time and literally as soon as we finish the show — we got some great guests coming — I will head straight to the poker room for the televised big poker challenge. So, that’s what’s going on.

BUCK: And I’ll tell you what it’s like to be living through more covid tyranny in NYC tomorrow.

CLAY: From a free state, now you’re fleeing back —

BUCK: Behind enemy lines.

CLAY: — to an authoritarian state.