2 Months, 2 Million: The Connect Four Tournament
First we had Meg Ryan's lovably neurotic Sally Albright who "took an hour and a half to order a sandwich" in the classic romantic comedy "When Harry Met Sally." Now we have Emil Patel, who ordered a lunch consisting of pancakes, mac and cheese, a whole pizza, a side of mixed berries, and a fruit smoothie. While Sally was merely specific in her culinary wants and needs, Patel simply couldn't decide on one entree from this smorgasbord of flavors and decided to order everything instead. Because, after all, when the whole tab might run you less than one big blind, what's the big deal, right?
While Patel picked at his personal buffet, Jay Rosenkrantz asked for everyone's help in organizing Deuces Cracked's upcoming charity tournament to benefit the Lili Claire Foundation — a $400-buy-in Connect Four Tournament called "Connect for Charity." Patel, naturally, was put in charge of the food, while Brian Roberts was tapped to produce a song to be performed at the event. Dani Stern was assigned perhaps the most difficult task — wrangling some hot Vegas girls willing to spend their afternoon at a Connect Four tournament. At the end of their meal, Rosenkrantz presented a second idea to get their competitive juices flowing when it came to the $2 million challenge: Whoever earned the most money by the end of the week would receive a $5,000 watch from the other three guys. All four agreed.
Patel and Roberts met with their personal chef to discuss the food. Before even getting to the desserts, they were already $500 over their $5,000 budget. Later, Roberts headed out to meet with a pair of local rappers at their studio, which featured real bullet holes in the front door. He sat down with them and outlined his ideas for the song, which consisted of a "simple break," the use of their event title (Connect for Charity), and "poker innuendos."
After returning home from his meeting, Roberts spotted "luckexpress10" on Full Tilt Poker and couldn't resist the opportunity to try and win back some of the $104,000 he lost to him a few weeks earlier. With Rosenkrantz, Patel, and Stern cheering him on, Roberts played a successful session and won $25,000.
Stern and Andrew "Luckychewy" Lichtenberger embarked on a mission to the Hard Rock pool to recruit some women for the Connect Four tournament. Stern's first target was a dark-haired, tattooed lady in a black bikini.
"What do you do?" Stern asked.
"I'm a stripper," she replied.
The stripper proceeded to ask Lichtenberger if he liked girls, leading him to turn a brilliant shade of scarlet. Although they approached a few more ladies, they were quickly shot down. Later, while grabbing a drink, they decided to approach a table of "cougars," but their overt advances scared Stern off.
Back in the War Room, Roberts was already smack-talking about winning the watch, describing to Rosenkrantz and Patel the type of watch he'd like to get when he wins the bet. The two fumed in silence as they stared at their blinking screens.
In desperate need of a Plan B when it came to finding girls for the Connect Four tournament, Stern and Lichtenberger headed to the Sapphire Gentlemen's Club and enlisted the aid of their concierge, "Striker."
"Do you have a budget for what you're going to pay these girls or any idea?" Striker asked.
"No, we're not going to pay them. They're going to come because we're awesome," replied Lichtenberger, serious as a nun in church.
Striker brought five girls back to Stern and Lichtenberger and in a stroke of luck, one actually admitted to enjoying Connect Four. A blond beauty, Alicia, agreed to come to the tournament.
Meanwhile, Roberts was over at the studio checking on the song. The rappers recorded the track right then and there and much to Roberts' surprise it actually ended up being pretty catchy.
The Connect Four tournament went off without a hitch. Well, one small hitch. The food was delicious, the entertainment was set, but where were the girls? As dozens of twentysomething geeks lined up to play their matches, Patel turned out to be a bit of a Connect Four savant, winning seven games in a row.
"That's Connect 5, buddy!" he cried, as he put away Rosenkrantz.
Only one girl showed up to the event — Alicia, the girl Stern met at Sapphire. The two sat down to play a game and Alicia couldn't even take a tiny bit of trash-talking from Stern. As the two players next to them started discussing hard-core strategy, Alicia could only roll her eyes. While the "date" was quickly going south, Rosenkrantz stepped in and saved his friend by inviting the rappers onstage to perform the song. Although the rappers saved the day and the event raised $20,000 for charity, Alicia left early.
The next morning, poor poor Dani Stern wallowed in his rejection by sleeping all day on the War Room couch.
"I was winning every day until yesterday," he moaned.
Soon it was tally time and Rosenkrantz totaled everyone's winnings for the week.
Week 7:
Jay Rosenkrantz: -$44,000
Emil Patel: -$19,000
Brian Roberts: +$46,500
Dani Stern: +$11,000
Total: -$5,500
Total to date +$135,600
The episode closed with Rosenkrantz performing the obligatory penalty stunt. While wearing denim cutoff short-shorts and a sleeveless plaid shirt tied at the waist, Rosenkrantz roller-skated from Fremont Street to the "Welcome to Las Vegas" sign while blowing a whistle, then posed for pictures with tourists. He appeared to enjoy this stunt just a little too much.
2 Months, 2 Million airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. on the G4 network. Check your local listings. Start your own $2 million quest, sign up for an account with one of our partner rooms here.
