Published on
Update on
Author

Ellen Degeneres is a woman of many talents, from stand-up comedy to acting – and now, she can add poker to the list. Recently, her wife Portia De Rossi gifted her a one-on-one poker coaching session with the acclaimed Vince Van Patten.

The coaching session was given to Ellen for her 62nd birthday, and she received her lesson recently. A small portion of the session was recorded on Portia’s Instagram, with Van Patten providing Ellen with some key information about player behaviour. He stated that players who act strong tend to be weak while players who act weak tend to have a stronger hand.

After the lesson, Vince took to Twitter to let everyone know just how great of a poker player Ellen is. He stated that she’s “tougher than a steak at Denny’s”. So, will we be seeing her on the tournament circuit any time soon? Well, that remains to be seen.

It’s not uncommon for celebrities to give it a go on the felt. We’ve seen the likes of Ben Affleck play during the World Series of Poker, and boxer David Haye has been pursuing a poker career by taking part in coaching sessions with pros from Grosvenor.

The World Series of Poker is a few months away. So, if Ellen can manage to squeeze a few more sessions into her busy schedule, she may be ready to go in time.

Ellen Is No Stranger at the Poker Table

This might be the first time that some readers have heard about Ellen playing poker, but he’s quite the aficionado. She regularly hosts high-stakes poker games with VIP guests.

According to Radar Online, Ellen’s poker games can get pretty tense and she even has a bit of a temper when things aren’t going right. A source states: “Ellen’s VERY serious about the game. When she loses her temper, people are terrified!”

The invite list to Ellen’s home games is pretty exclusive, limited to industry executives, staff on her talk show and celebrity friends. Chelsea Handler, Melissa Etheridge and Amy Schumer are just some of the A-Listers that have played poker will Ellen.

Of course, none of the sources about Ellen’s poker tantrums have been confirmed. So, it’s best that we just assume she has on her happy talkshow host face even when she’s on tilt at the table.