Continental Poker Championship Shoots For TV

Date: Sat, Jul 5, 2008

The Inaugural Continental Poker Championship will begin Saturday, July 26th, 2008 at Turning Stone Resort & Casino in Verona, New York. The Final Table will take place on Monday, July 28th and will be filmed in HD for television broadcast.

The CPC TV program will initially run on Time Warner Sports on Wednesday, October 15th, 2008 on Channel 26 in New York. However, discussions are underway that will bring the CPC to a nationwide audience shortly thereafter.

The 2008 Main Event begins what will be a series of televised events throughout the year. This includes a once-a-year Main Event and several CPC Circuit Events that will take place at several casinos located across North America.

Note, however, that not all poker shows succeed in getting aired.

Source: Continental Poker Championship site.

What To Expect From This Year's WSOP Broadcasts

Date: Fri, Jul 4, 2008

This year's WSOP US Main Event is underway, and PokerNews.com reports:

A Constant Camera Presence

Over on Blue 36, there's been a boom mike hanging over the table the entire time. There's one celebrity there who, we're sure, is used to that kind of attention - it's Jason Alexander of Seinfeld fame.

Next Week's Poker on TV

Date: Thu, Jul 3, 2008

Next week's World Poker Tour event is the Borgata Poker Classic, featuring Gavin Griffin, Lee Watkinson, David Tran, Noah Schwartz, Ervin Prifti, and Tom Hare.

The first episode of the Asia Pacific Poker Tour Macau event is available in the usual places. It's a sister to the European Poker Tour, and the broadcasts look similar.

World Poker Tour Announces New "All-In" Version was a parody. As EmmJay said in the comments, "The fact that so many people fell for this proves that it's thought to be possible. And that's sad in itself."

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.

ESPN To Air WSOP Europe

Date: Thu, Jul 3, 2008

ESPN will air the second WSOP Europe, which starts in September, in the US and on the web:

For the first time... ESPN, the exclusive World Series of Poker telecaster, is scheduled to air eight original hours of coverage of the World Series of Poker Europe in the United States and distribute the tournament globally. ESPN360.com, ESPN’s signature broadband sports network, is scheduled to provide live coverage in the U.S., Europe, Mexico and Brazil.

Harrah’s Entertainment will distribute the World Series of Poker Europe programming in non-ESPN markets, which in 2007 totaled over 100 million households including U.K. host broadcaster Sky Sports.

Press Release

World Series Of Golf This Weekend

Date: Fri, Jun 27, 2008

The World Series of Golf airs on CBS at 2 PM Saturday and Sunday. It's a golf competition featuring poker-style betting and some professional poker players. I thought last year's show was pretty bad.

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.

New This Week: The River

Date: Fri, Jun 20, 2008

The River (previous article) is hosted at the WinStar Casino on the Texas-Oklahoma border. There will be a $3 million tournament in August, and they're televising qualifiers now. It's syndicated to various channels, so you should search a programming guide for the time in your area. Note that The River may be called World Championship Poker on some channels. The show has already started airing in some areas. I haven't seen it yet, but it's reportedly very bad.

Next week's WPT event is part one of the World Poker Open, from Tunica, Mississippi. It's the second of two two-part shows this season. The first one was notably good. The players are Freddy Deeb, Hoyt Corkins, Men "The Master" Nguyen, John Spadavecchia, Brett Faustman, and Gabe Costner.

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.

World Poker Tour Announces New "All-In" Version

Date: Tue, Jun 17, 2008

Excerpts from Serious Sports News Network:

World Poker Tour Enterprises... has announced a new series of events designed to revive the sagging ratings for poker shows.

WPT President Steve Lipscomb made the announcement today.... "we’ve now created a new wrinkle to the classic American card game. We call it the All-In Poker Tour."

"With our new All-In Tour, it’s ‘all-in, all the time.’"

"I understand why some players would be upset at the changes.... What they fail to understand is that TV poker is now less about poker and more about TV," Lipscomb said, responding to the players’ concerns.

"Nobody wants to hear about strategy and pot-odds and hand analysis. If TV viewers wanted to think, they’d watch ‘Jeopardy’. What we want is the ‘Deal or No Deal’ audience. More cards, more luck and more action, less of that strategerization and thinky-type stuff."