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Club WPT, EPT Live, and Mayfair Club on PAD

Date: Thu, Oct 2, 2008

Club WPT starts Sunday at 4 PM on Fox Sports Net. They rerun it at 11 PM and various other times during the week.

The World Series of Poker moves to 9 PM Tuesday.

Next week's Poker After Dark is a tournament featuring players that got their start at New York's old Mayfair Club: Howard Lederer, Dan Harrington, Steve Zolotow, Jay Heimowitz, Mickey Appleman, and Mike Shichtman.

There are three days of EPT London live broadcasts coming up:

  • EPT London TV Table, Saturday Oct 4, 8:30 AM (Eastern time)
  • EPT London Final Table, Sunday Oct 5, 8:30 AM
  • £1 Million Showdown, Monday Oct 6, 8:00 AM
This week's newsbites:
Check our poker on TV schedule for the list of shows regularly running new episodes, sign up for our weekly newsletter or subscribe to our feed, and contact me with any suggestions or corrections.

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Hottie Hired As Hostess Of Club WPT Show

Date: Thu, Oct 2, 2008

ClubWPT.com premieres Sunday at 4 PM on Fox Sports Net. It's a show designed to promote WPTE's subscription poker site ClubWPT.com. Players qualify on ClubWPT.com for seats on the TV show along with airfare, accommodations at a Four Seasons hotel, and spending cash.

The announcing team consists of:

  • Barry Tompkins: he's a non-poker guy who does a good job of play-by-play in my opinion.
  • Bart Hanson: he's one of the most highly regarded poker announcers for his work on the old Live at the Bike streams as well as the Cash Plays podcast.
  • Alison Waite: she was Playboy's Miss May 2006 and doesn't have much TV experience.
We're a family-friendly site so you'll have to find Alison Waite's Playboy pictures yourself, but here are some relatively tame ones:







See also the press release.

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WSOP Europe And WPT Canada

Date: Fri, Sep 26, 2008

Next week's Poker After Dark is a tournament featuring Mike Matusow, Phil Hellmuth, Mike Sexton, Jennifer Harman, Gavin Smith, and online qualifier Paul Featherstone.

The WSOP Europe Main Event streams its final table live on Thursday the 2nd, starting at about 8:15 AM. You can find it at bwin-wsoplive.com or, if you have access to it, ESPN360.com.

The little WPT Canada series is available for download at the Poker Bay.

This week's newsbites:

  • Krantz posted some more tidbits from the taping of House of Cards.
Check our poker on TV schedule for the list of shows regularly running new episodes, sign up for our weekly newsletter or subscribe to our feed, and contact me with any suggestions or corrections.

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Poker After Dark New Next Week

Date: Fri, Sep 19, 2008

Poker After Dark is running a new tournament next week, featuring Mike Matusow, Phil Laak, Phil Hellmuth, David Williams, Clonie Gowen, and Gavin Smith.

Newsbites from the comments:

  • Follow what's going on with the taping of House of Cards;
  • read about what happened at the taping of Best Damn Poker Show season 2; and
  • read the latest rumor about High Stakes Poker season five's air date (last week's prediction of HSP's taping date was wrong).
Check our poker on TV schedule for the list of shows regularly running new episodes, sign up for our weekly newsletter or subscribe to our feed, and contact me with any suggestions or corrections.

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Poker After Dark Season 4 Review

Date: Wed, Sep 17, 2008

Already one of the two leading poker shows among critical audiences and poker players, including myself, Poker After Dark is proving yet again that it can stay ahead of the curve. In addition to its normal 6-person winner-take-all freezeout tournament, also referred to as the STT, the show has added two new formats: a cash game as well as a heads up competition. The results of these were mixed, but overall the show is still clearly the head of the class in televised poker.

Poker shows should all be getting the basics right -- that should be the easiest part. But sadly, many of them (e.g. ESPN's WSOP coverage) don't even show all the hole cards folded preflop. Congrats to PAD for doing the obvious, which is showing viewers not just which starting hands get played, but also which ones don't. Another fundamental quality Poker After Dark has to its advantage is its tournament flow -- since it's structured to fit its entirety into 5 episodes, we're able to see virtually every hand played. This gives viewers a true sense of the rhythms of activity, the periods where loose blind defenders get walks, the periods where short stacks push in raise-and-take-it situations, and the times when certain opponents get personal with each other.

By contrast, other shows (such as the WPT, which is forced to shorten 7 hours of playing time into less than 2) destroy the real sense of momentum and cut to the chase -- that is, the all-in coin flips. And it's those small moments and small pots between the big flips that makes poker interesting, which is why Poker After Dark is still a cut above the rest.

Now for the drawbacks, of which there are only a few: many fans have mourned the loss of Marianela Pereyra, PAD's sharpest and most likable host to date. The smoky-voiced replacement, Leeann Tweeden, has far less personality and adds very little to the already-forced interviews taking place during hands. Luckily PAD's voice in the booth, Ali Nejad, has been improving season after season. While some may object to his attitude at the table, he's quite likable at the mic. Nejad has the right mix of poker knowledge and sense of humor necessary to fill in the dead spots (often during heads up battles, when quiet players have no interest in table banter) and keep viewers entertained.

It's also frustrating that after 3 seasons, Poker After Dark is still stubbornly holding onto the idea of cash on the table along with the chips. For the cash game, it's understandable, but for the tournaments it's just ridiculous. And it's not just an aesthetic issue: Mike Matusow was involved in a recent hand where he interpreted a player's call (when Elezra tossed a 10k brick of cash into the pot due to lack of chips) as a raise, and mucked his hand. A producer immediately had to come to the table to change out Eli's cash for chips so such a mistake wouldn't happen again. Imagine viewers' surprise when the cash bricks still didn't go away after that episode.

And as a minor annoyance, the audio mix has never seemed quite right, as mentioned in the last PAD review published in April. This is especially frustrating when we're trying to follow an intriguing table conversation that gets swallowed up by Nejad. But overall, Poker After Dark is still the best poker show on television and it only got better this year with the new formats. Season 4 gets **** out of ***** overall, taking into account ***** for the cash game, **** for the STT weeks, and *** for the Heads Up Challenge. Read the following for specific comments about each format:

The Cash Game

Before Poker After Dark entered the cash game ring, the most notable entry in this genre has been High Stakes Poker, also produced by PAD's Poker PROductions. HSP is a great show, but suffers from too many clowns and showboats slowing down the action. But thanks to some clever casting this time around, PAD's viewers got a chance to see some of today's best cash game players -- both online and live -- compete at the table. HSP briefly attempted to give TV time to players like Phil Galfond and Brian Townsend, but eventually settled back on the celebrities. Poker After Dark's cash game had no Sam Farha, no Jamie Gold, and no Phil Laak to chew up camera time and babble endlessly. Instead they settled on sharks like Tom Dwan, David Peat, and Allen Cunningham (along with the requisite rich fish like hedge fund millionaire Mike Baxter and Cirque du Soleil founder Guy LaLiberte), and it made for a terrific week of televised poker -- something casual fans could enjoy just as much as the enthusiastic players.

The STT

There weren't too many changes to the winner-take-all freezeout format this season, aside from more refreshing themes. Some have complained about the strange lengths PAD goes to in order to find a weekly theme ("Cowboys" week last season, featuring the likes of Chau Giang and Gabe Kaplan donning ten-gallon hats just to fit in, was particularly wearying), but season 4 kicked off with a clever "Nets vs. Vets" week, an intriguing mash-up of online kids and grizzled B&M vets. And true to form, it ended up with a classic slugfest of a heads up match between Brian Townsend and Doyle Brunson -- what more could you ask for?

Future STTs this season also appear to have solid lineups and audiences are eagerly anticipating this fall's airings -- there's a week with players from NYC's old underground Mayfair Club, a "Close But No Cigar" featuring Main Event final tablers who didn't snag the bracelet, and even a "Brilliant Minds" week with 6 math geniuses including Bill Chen and David Sklansky. I expect these tournaments to live up to their billing, and if the Nets vs. Vets match was any indication of the Season 4 STTs, the other shows don't stand a chance in competition.

The Heads Up Challenge

NBC's sister poker show, the annual Heads-Up Championship from Caesar's, is not poker's finest hour and has deteriorated in quality over the past couple tournaments. But that hasn't stopped Poker After Dark from attempting to cash in on its popularity: this season, PAD assembled the 4 champions of that tournament from 2005-2008, and challenged them to a $50,000 buy-in, winner-take-all double-elimination format. Not a bad idea, but the results didn't quite pan out.

First of all, the casting was handcuffed with no flexibility -- past champions were Phil Hellmuth, Paul Wasicka, Ted Forrest, and Chris Ferguson, so those were the 4 players PAD was stuck with. And as nice and talented as they are, these guys don't make for great poker on TV. Forrest was surly and short-tempered, seemingly not even interested in being there. He was impatient and prickly (which actually made for some of the more vibrant moments of the week), Wasicka was quiet and measured, and Ferguson was a mute statue. Only Hellmuth had character, and many of us think that's a character who'd be better off under the wheels of a bus sometimes.

For the Heads Up Challenge to succeed next season they'll need to spruce up the production and cast some better players. That will take some of the pressure of Nejad to keep things going with his stream of clever one-liners (the best of which was during a point where Forrest sat there munching on bananas for a half hour, and Nejad quipped: "Ted Forrest is up to 2 on the Chiquita-meter"). Overall, the Heads Up Challenge is yet another well-made Poker After Dark show, but this season it's the worst of the 3 formats.

Feel free to post your comments below, whether you agree or disagree. See also the last full review of Poker After Dark.

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GSN Talks High Stakes Poker and Lyle Berman Talks WPT

Date: Tue, Sep 16, 2008

The latest PocketFives.com podcast features Kevin Belinkoff and Lyle Berman.

Kevin Belinkoff is Vice President of Programming at GSN, and he discussed season five of High Stakes Poker. He said they don't have a shooting schedule or host yet, but they're talking to a number of potential venues and hope to be shooting pretty soon. They've moved poker programming to Sunday nights.

Lyle Berman is the Chairman of World Poker Tour Enterprises and the guy who financed its startup. He talks about the founding of the company and his experience playing high-stakes games and winning WSOP bracelets.

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Poker On TV Update: EPT Live This Weekend

Date: Thu, Sep 11, 2008

Season 5 of the European Poker Tour just started, and EPT Live is streaming the final two days of the Barcelona event Saturday and Sunday. They don't show hole cards, but I recommend these streams.

Newsbites from the comments:

Check our poker on TV schedule for the list of shows regularly running new episodes, sign up for our weekly newsletter or subscribe to our feed, and contact me with any suggestions or corrections.

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Hobbyist Beats Hollywood At TV Poker Technology

Date: Tue, Sep 9, 2008

In three months of his spare time a hobbyist built a combination of poker table and software that beats most professional TV poker systems. It uses RFID chips and cameras to televise the game in real time, with hole cards and winning probabilities. He has RFID chips as well, and automated bet tracking will be implemented soon.







The technology isn't new (Poker Dome demonstrated that the technology is mature, and there are competing technologies) but most shows are still using humans to read hole-card video and gather action information. The problem with that is the expense: we get fewer TV shows and some of those we get don't even give us hole-card or action information. If the technology is simple enough for an amateur to implement for his home game, why aren't all poker TV shows using it?

Read more about Andrew Milner's The Video Poker Table Project.

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Hobbyist Beats Hollywood At TV Poker Technology

Date: Tue, Sep 9, 2008

In three months of his spare time a hobbyist built a combination of poker table and software that beats most professional TV poker systems. It uses RFID chips and cameras to televise the game in real time, with hole cards and winning probabilities. He has RFID chips as well, and automated bet tracking will be implemented soon.







The technology isn't new (Poker Dome demonstrated that the technology is mature, and there are competing technologies) but most shows are still using humans to read hole-card video and gather action information. The problem with that is the expense: we get fewer TV shows and some of those we get don't even give us hole-card or action information. If the technology is simple enough for an amateur to implement for his home game, why aren't all poker TV shows using it?

Read more about Andrew Milner's The Video Poker Table Project.

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The Week In Poker On TV

Date: Sun, Sep 7, 2008

There are no changes to the schedule this week: the WSOP continues Tuesdays at 8, and Poker After Dark is in rerun for two more weeks.

Newsbites from the comments:

Check our poker on TV schedule for the list of shows regularly running new episodes, sign up for our weekly newsletter or subscribe to our feed, and contact me with any suggestions or corrections.

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The Week In Poker On TV

Date: Sun, Sep 7, 2008

There are no changes to the schedule this week: the WSOP continues Tuesdays at 8, and Poker After Dark is in rerun for two more weeks.

Newsbites from the comments:

Check our poker on TV schedule for the list of shows regularly running new episodes, sign up for our weekly newsletter or subscribe to our feed, and contact me with any suggestions or corrections.

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PokerStars North American Poker Tour

Date: Sun, Sep 7, 2008

There have been rumors of a new PokerStars tour in North America for some time now. PokerStars already has three tours:

  • The European Poker Tour, about to start its fifth season, has long been televised and streamed over the internet. It looks to be surpassing the World Poker Tour as the leading poker tour. The last EPT Championship was the second-biggest tournament in the world by prize money, in fact, surpassing the WPT Championship.
  • The Asia Pacific Poker Tour is already successful and entering its second televised season.
  • The Latin American Poker Tour has had one season, and the second one will reportedly be televised (though not in English).
None of these tours have been broadcast in the United States, however (though they're available online and the EPT PokerStars Caribbean Adventure was broadcast in the US). The new tour is aimed squarely at North America.

PokerStars has reportedly assigned Latin American Poker Tour director Rich Korbin to run the new Canada-based tour. The early reports were that the tour would start off with tournaments in the Bahamas, Montreal, and Vancouver. There was speculation that the WPT's Niagara stop would defect to the new PokerStars tour, but they resumed running WPT satellites after the WPT got its Fox Sports Net deal. The PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (the Bahamas stop) was also belatedly added to EPT schedule, where it formerly resided (and before that it was a WPT event). It looks to me like PokerStars's fourth tour may be harder to get off the ground than the first three, but with their money, expertise, and proven success there's no doubt they could be a formidable competitor in the North American poker TV scene.

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PokerStars North American Poker Tour

Date: Sun, Sep 7, 2008

There have been rumors of a new PokerStars tour in North America for some time now. PokerStars already has three tours:

  • The European Poker Tour, about to start its fifth season, has long been televised and streamed over the internet. It looks to be surpassing the World Poker Tour as the leading poker tour. The last EPT Championship was the second-biggest tournament in the world by prize money, in fact, surpassing the WPT Championship.
  • The Asia Pacific Poker Tour is already successful and entering its second televised season.
  • The Latin American Poker Tour has had one season, and the second one will reportedly be televised (though not in English).
None of these tours have been broadcast in the United States, however (though they're available online and the EPT PokerStars Caribbean Adventure was broadcast in the US). The new tour is aimed squarely at North America.

PokerStars has reportedly assigned Latin American Poker Tour director Rich Korbin to run the new Canada-based tour. The early reports were that the tour would start off with tournaments in the Bahamas, Montreal, and Vancouver. There was speculation that the WPT's Niagara stop would defect to the new PokerStars tour, but they resumed running WPT satellites after the WPT got its Fox Sports Net deal. The PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (the Bahamas stop) was also belatedly added to EPT schedule, where it formerly resided (and before that it was a WPT event). It looks like it will be a while before PokerStars's fourth tour gets off the ground, but with their money, expertise, and proven success there's no doubt they could be a formidable competitor in the North American poker TV scene.

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Reality TV Show About Online Poker Stars Filming Pilot

Date: Sun, Sep 7, 2008

Gaming channel G4 will film a pilot for House of Cards, a new reality TV show about online poker stars Jay "Krantz/pr1nnyraid" Rosenkrantz, Emil "Whitelime" Patel, Ariel "FoxwoodsFiend/DaEvils" Schneller, and Brian "Flawless Victory" Roberts. Krantz blogs:


-the premise of the pilot is that we will all be playing poker over the course of 1 week trying to meet some arbitrary cumulative $ goal. The person who earns the least will be forced to do some ridiculous stunt, dare, punishment, etc. There will be a big party and some other sweet sillyness, like footage of my dunk training and possibly flying F14 jets. There is an awesome house. We live in it.

-we are headed out there for 2 weeks to film the pilot. If the pilot is good, there’s a high likelihood we will get a 6-8 episode series.

... this jazzy description of the TV show:

HOUSE OF CARDS, a half hour special, will chronicle the lives of a group of top-flight online poker players. All close friends who met on the internet, they’re considered the best online players in the world. We’ll hear their stories and vicariously experience a dream life through their eyes, enjoying the best that high-end Las Vegas luxury has to offer. From the hottest clubs to the top hotels and restaurants, the boys are heroes to kids like them around the Globe.

The show will reportedly be produced by Emmy Award winner Michael Maloy.

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