After Jean-Robert Bellande’s embarrassing and fascinating stint on Survivor, producers once again dipped into the professional poker pool to cast the show’s 23rd season. Since the game of Survivor is very much like playing a hand of poker – with the ability to effectively deceive fellow players being the game’s winning skill – it seems professional poker players would have a huge advantage in the game.
“There is never a concerted effort to cast any specific type of profession on ‘Survivor’, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that poker players make for such great characters,” Survivor host/executive producer Jeff Probst told ESPN. “‘Survivor’ is the social politics equivalent of poker. It’s a game about reading other people, learning their tendencies, showing them only as much as you want them to see, but letting them think they are seeing more than they should. In the end, as we say on the show, ‘only one will remain’ — that is the essence of ‘Survivor’ and poker.”
Although not hugely recognized in the pro poker world, Albert Destrade and Jim Rice, have been very successful at the poker tables. Destrade is a baseball coach who makes the majority of his money in South Florida’s poker scene and Rice is a legalized marijuana distributor from Denver who’s cashed in many poker tournaments, most recently amassing a $116,555 win in a $2,000 buy-in Festa Al Lago preliminary event. However, although seemingly more qualified than your average Survivor player, neither won the season, with Destrade and Rice finished third and 12th, respectively. Although Rice mentions his professional poker career in his pre-interviews for the season, the show identifies his occupation as running two medical marijuana dispensaries in Denver, Colorado.
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