Fifth Street Journal

Poker 2Nite: Poker News Show To Air On Fox Sports Net

2009-11-11T04:17:00.000-05:00

Joe Sebok (poker player, founder of PokerRoad.com, and son of Barry Greenstein) announced:

We... will be launching a new poker-based news show that will air on FoxSports television (!) nationally every week. It's called "Poker 2Nite" and we are going to try and bring as much of the PokerRoad sensibility to the show as we possibly can. We shoot the first show on 11/17, with episodes to air Wednesdays at 11pm starting the next day, the 18th, and then being rebroadcast throughout the weekend.

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PartyGaming Reveals Plans For World Poker Tour

2009-11-11T03:17:00.000-05:00

PartyGaming revealed some of their plans for the newly-acquired World Poker Tour:

Our plans also include using the ClubWPT subscription platform to leverage our 12 million-strong US player database via a Party-branded website and the launch of a European WPT-branded poker and casino site. We are excited about the opportunities that WPT, a proven marketing channel for the Group, will create for PartyGaming, particularly if the US regulates and licenses online gaming.

I think they seriously overestimate the chances of online poker being regulated in the United States, and the chances of any regulatory system not being protectionist.

Adam Pliska, formerly World Poker Tour's General Counsel, is the new President.

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ESPN's WSOP Monopoly Must End

2009-11-09T23:56:00.015-05:00

As recently as 2007 ESPN aired 10 of 55 WSOP events, comprising HORSE, Omaha, Stud, and multiple forms of hold 'em. In 2008 they aired 7 of 55 events, including HORSE, Omaha, and multiple forms of hold 'em. This year they only broadcast two of 57 WSOP events, both no-limit hold 'em. ESPN simply isn't covering the WSOP any more. The solution is simple: end their monopoly on WSOP broadcasts. Let ESPN broadcast whatever it wants (the Main Event gets the highest ratings, and it's the only event they've broadcast every year), but let others bid to broadcast the other events.

Everyone would benefit from this solution. Harrah's would get more airtime for the WSOP. ESPN would get more people interested in watching the Main Event. Poker would garner new fans. We'd get to watch the events we want to see, like the $50K HORSE. Games other than no-limit hold 'em would gain in popularity. Remember the early years of the poker boom when every poker show explained hold 'em at the beginning (Celebrity Poker Showdown's explanation started with "it's a simple game really...")? People would learn other games from TV (PLO is regarded as most likely to succeed) just as they once learned hold 'em.

Companies like Windy City Poker Championship and Heartland Poker Tour produce competent broadcasts on a shoestring compared to what ESPN spends, and manage to make profits without even being on national channels. If they can do that, there's no doubt that every single WSOP event could be broadcast profitably on a national channel. There are plenty of national TV channels with young, male audiences that would be excellent venues for poker on TV. ESPN is the most popular one, of course, but Spike, G4, Versus, and many others fit the bill as well. If necessary, the shows could settle for late-night time slots like Poker After Dark did.

There's another reason that ESPN's WSOP monopoly should end: as I've written about extensively over the course of several years, I believe the company with the contract to broadcast our most important event is the worst major poker broadcaster. Not only would we likely get better WSOP broadcasts from companies other than ESPN, but we'd probably also see improvements at ESPN due to competition and the comparison with different broadcasting models.

ESPN's broadcasts this year were pretty much the same as always (other than the Ante Up For Africa event, which may have been a new low), so I won't provide a full review. A few things that I did notice this year, however, all frustrating:

The hole-card cam created the poker boom back 2003, but ESPN seems to have forgotten that: for many hands they choose not to show the hole cards until the players turn them over.
They're the only broadcaster I've ever seen get the "show only one player's hole cards" hands backwards.
There were the usual array of errors, suggesting that Norman Chad and the people who review his work don't understand poker: mixing up 4- and 5-bets, getting the breakeven probability on a 3:1 decision wrong (it's 25%), etc.

I've previously suggested a couple of ideas for the WSOP that I think bear repeating:

Film a cash game. The entire poker world is in Vegas during the WSOP each summer, and the biggest cash games are already taking place. Why not film one? There's plenty of evidence that cash games are more popular than tournaments (e.g. downloads, forum posts, poll, poll). The show could either be a "WSOP Cash Game," or another company could produce it without using the WSOP brand.
If ESPN is going to follow the early and middle tournament (the worst part of their broadcasts: they don't screw up the final few tables as badly), follow one player at a time through the tournament, ignoring everything else. It's a model that's never been tried before, but deserves a chance. As it is, ESPN doesn't show anything long enough for us to get to know and root for players, see how a table plays, or even follow the course of the tournament. Replace the soundbites that they pass off as "compelling stories" with an actual compelling story: the progress of one player through the tournament, allowing us to get to know and root for him (and also allowing us to follow table dynamics plus the changes in the tournament: rising blinds, the bubble, etc.). If ESPN used this model I'd guess they would have followed Phil Ivey on one of their hole-card-cam tables (they run two) this year, and they would have had a blockbuster on their hands when he made the final table. Regardless of how featured players fare, however, I believe this model would help solve the basic problems with ESPN's early-mid tournament coverage. I previously wrote out my best arguments for this model, so you should read that if you're interested in hearing more about the idea.

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WSOP Main Event Final Table Viewers' Guide, Plus How To Follow It Live

2009-11-07T09:44:00.001-05:00

The WSOP Main Event final table airs Tuesday, November 10th, at 9 PM on ESPN. The major change this year is that they'll have the freedom to run over two hours at the producers' discretion. This will hopefully eliminate the major criticism of last year, that they spent so little time on the heads-up battle.

Chip counts:
1 – Darvin Moon 58,930,000
2 – Eric Buchman 34,800,000
3 – Steven Begleiter 29,885,000
4 – Jeff Shulman 19,580,000
5 – Joe Cada 13,215,000
6 – Kevin Schaffel 12,390,000
7 – Phil Ivey 9,765,000
8 – Antoine Saout 9,500,000
9 – James Akenhead 6,800,000

When play resumes Darvin Moon will have the button and Ivey the big blind. 7:16 remains in level 33, which has 120/240/30k blinds/antes. Blind levels are 2 hours long, with 20-minute breaks at the end of each level except the first one, since it only has a few minutes left. Future blind levels are:
Level 34 - 150/300/40k
Level 35 - 200/400/50k
Level 36 - 250/500/50k
Level 37 - 300/600/75k
Level 38 - 400/800/100k
Level 39 - 500/1m/150k
Level 40 - 600/1.2m/200k

Brief bios of the players. My favorite analysis/prediction is DogFace's. Wicked Chops also has an interesting article.

Payouts:
1st $8,547,042
2nd $5,182,928
3rd $3,479,670
4th $2,502,890
5th $1,953,452
6th $1,587,160
7th $1,404,014
8th $1,300,231
9th $1,263,602

The final table will be taped in two segments over the preceding three days:

They'll play down to heads up on Saturday, November 7, starting at about noon (3 PM eastern).
The heads-up match starts on Monday, November 9, at about 10 PM (1 AM eastern).

That's one more day than last year, when it started playing on Sunday.

If you're trying to avoid the results till the final table airs, that will be difficult. ESPN will cover the results beforehand, despite coming in for a lot of criticism over that last year, as will other media outlets.

If you prefer to follow the final table live, Bluff will have a live audio stream with graphics and PokerNews.com will have their usual web updates.

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PokerStars Sponsors High Stakes Poker Season 6, Logos Allowed?

2009-11-05T23:29:00.009-05:00

High Stakes Poker will have a sponsor for the first time in season 6: PokerStars. Historically, PokerStars left US TV-show marketing mostly to Full Tilt Poker, but with Million Dollar Challenge, and now High Stakes Poker, it's clear that PokerStars has changed their strategy.

There's a hint that there may be another major change for High Stakes Poker in season 6. Andreas Hoivold, who's expected to play the season, wrote in his blog (in Norwegian): "I should mention that there have been a few inquiries regarding sponsorship. But here I can not write anything until everything is in the bag." Players have never been allowed to wear logos on High Stakes Poker in the past. There have been a few hints (e.g.) that High Stakes Poker was having a hard time putting together a field for the upcoming season, however, and sponsorship would make it easier for players to afford it.

Given that PokerStars pulled their sponsored players from Full Tilt-sponsored Poker After Dark, some people worried that we'd only see PokerStars-sponsored players on High Stakes Poker. Fortunately, several Full Tilt-sponsored players showed up on the High Stakes Poker season 6 player list... a good thing because Full Tilt sponsors many of the best players in the world, and that's where all the "nosebleed-stakes" online games take place. PokerStars, on the other hand, sponsors only one prominent high stakes player: Barry Greenstein. They're more likely to sponsor players that are known for tournament success.

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High Stakes Poker Season 6 Players Announced

2009-11-05T12:17:00.007-05:00

High Stakes Poker season 6's expected players are:

Phil Ivey
Daniel Negreanu
Phil Hellmuth
Tom "durrrr" Dwan
Doyle Brunson
Mike Matusow
Patrik Antonius
Antonio Esfandiari
Barry Greenstein
Dennis Phillips
David Benyamine
Eli Elezra
Yevgeniy Timoshenko
Allan Meltzer
Lex Veldhuis
Sammy George
Andreas Hoivold

The show will tape 13 episodes at the Golden Nugget from November 11th to 13th. They will air on GSN Sunday nights at 8 PM starting February 14. Gabe Kaplan will do commentary alone, and Kara Scott will do interviews. As in the past, blinds will be $400/$800 with a $200,000 minimum buy-in and no prop bets will be allowed. GSN promises "a brand-new look and feel for the show that puts viewers in the thick of the poker action." Note that the above list isn't purported to be complete, and player lineups are never certain until they sit down to play.

Some popular past players not listed:

Sammy Farha
Phil Laak
Todd Brunson
Jennifer Harman

Bios of the players are in the comments below.

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US Poker Championship Returns To TV, With PLO

2009-11-05T03:21:00.001-05:00

The United States Poker Championship, broadcast annually through 2006 on ESPN, will return to TV this year. The Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City signed a five-year deal with Compass Entertainment to produce the show, and it will be broadcast on Spike this year. They will be televising the $5,000 no-limit hold 'em and $2,500 pot-limit Omaha events (schedule). Compass CEO Greg McDonald's other poker-related work includes producing the poker film Deal and publishing Rounder magazine.

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World Poker Tour Rejects Mandalay Offer, Sells To PartyGaming

2009-11-05T00:56:00.003-05:00

The board of World Poker Tour Enterprises (WPTE) rejected Mandalay Media's last-minute offer and the shareholders approved WPTE's sale to PartyGaming. The sale has already closed . WPTE retained the company's cash, and will become a "blind pool" named ante4, Inc., which is expected to buy an unrelated business.

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Poker on TV Update: Face the Ace Saturday, Ivey Tuesday

2009-10-30T06:48:00.002-04:00

Face the Ace runs another episode Saturday at 5 PM on NBC.

Phil Ivey is on ESPN's E:60 Tuesday at 7 PM.

The 2009 World Heads-Up Poker Championship is streaming live from the Victoria Casino in London through Saturday.

Million Dollar Challenge is off till November 22. Poker After Dark is in rerun till December 7.

An English-language version of Million Dollar Cash Game season 3 has finally become available for downloading or streaming. The production is poor, particularly the onscreen graphics, but it's a huge cash game so I'm sure some of you will want to watch it.

This week's newsbites:

PokerNews.com did a comparison of Million Dollar Challenge and Face the Ace and concluded that Million Dollar Challenge is the better show, which I think is the consensus view.
Poker After Dark started filming another 13 weeks of programming Thursday.
The 2 Months $2 Million cast did some more interviews, one of which includes a much more interesting story of the Viffer match than the one on the show.
Kara Scott will be the sideline reporter for the WSOP Europe.
Windy City Poker Championship is now also airing on Bright House Networks.

Check our poker on TV schedule for the full list of shows running new episodes.

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Money Added Tournaments Start This Weekend At Bodog

2009-10-30T05:49:00.005-04:00

Bodog (review) is adding $2,500 to $25,000 to the prize pool of every tournament in the Bodog Poker Open, which starts Sunday:

Date	Time	Event	Buy In	Type	Added
Sun Nov 1	16:00 ET	1	$100 + $9	NLHE	$15k Added
Mon Nov 2	20:30 ET	2	$250 + $20	NLHE	$5k Added
Tues Nov 3	20:30 ET	3	$300 + $25	NLHE 6-Max	$5k Added
Wed Nov 4	20:30 ET	4	$50 + $5	NLHE (Rebuy)	$5k Added
Thurs Nov 5	20:30 ET	5	$150 + $12	Pot Limit	$5k Added
Fri Nov 6	20:30 ET	6	$150 + $12	Limit	$2,500 Added
Sat Nov 7			Satellite Sat
Sun Nov 8	16:00 ET	Finale	$470 + $30	NLHE	$25k Added

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World Poker Tour Gets Another Purchase Offer

2009-10-30T02:06:00.004-04:00

World Poker Tour Enterprises (WPTE) got a $35 million offer from Mandalay Media for the company. PartyPoker had previously offered $12.3 million for WPTE's operating assets, topping an even earlier offer. Mandalay has asked WPTE to postpone the shareholder meeting, scheduled for today, at which they were to approve the sale to PartyPoker.

Mandalay Media is a small, unprofitable company that distributes entertainment, including video and games, over cell-phone networks. Hollywood legend Peter Guber is co-chairman and 13% owner.

The price difference isn't as much as it seems: Party offered to buy the operating assets of the World Poker Tour from the company for $12.3 million. Mandalay is offering to buy the whole company from the shareholders for $35 million ($25 million in cash and $10 million in Mandalay stock). By getting the whole company Mandalay would also get the approximately $14 million in net current assets (cash and such) that WPTE holds. They say that their offer is 23% better than Party's and 54% above WPTE's current share price.

Mandalay claims that they'll add value by putting the World Poker Tour on cell phone networks, but I'm skeptical. Online poker room sponsorship of poker tours and TV shows is proving to be the winning model in the field, so I think Party would get more value out of WPTE than Mandalay.

Update: Mandalay has already increased their offer, to $36.5 million with a greater proportion of cash.

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Kara Scott New High Stakes Poker Hostess

2009-10-27T03:45:00.008-04:00

AJ Benza blogged twice (1, 2) lately about losing his High Stakes Poker gig. On the October 26 Mediocre Poker Radio podcast he added that Kara Scott will be the new hostess for High Stakes Poker season 6, doing interviews from the floor while Gabe Kaplan does commentary alone:

I heard it's going to be Kara Scott who's going to be down by the tables. She'll work three days 'cause the game's a three day game. And then Gabe will do all the commenting alone, which is kind of lonely: there's nobody to play off of, there's nobody to joke with. I know Gabe, he's a comedian, he's got great timing, and I know he's going to miss that (indistinct) but.. GSN just... they got into this price-slashing mode. And a lot of people took a lot less money. I offered to take less money to keep the job but they said they didn't care about that.

Really what they're doing now is that they have Kara Scott doing tableside interviews and Gabe announcing alone you're basically just doing Poker After Dark.

I think adding a hostess is a step in the wrong direction. 90% of the interviews on Poker After Dark aren't as good as watching the game, and that show airs most of the hands. High Stakes Poker only shows a selection of interesting hands, so the poker that's sacrificed for interviews is likely to be a greater loss.

Kara Scott is attractive and well-liked, however, and they could do much worse. She's most well known to most of us for being the European Poker Tour hostess. She's also the girlfriend of Brian Townsend, one of the best poker players in the world, and has had some good tournament cashes lately.

Some more tidbits from the AJ Benza interview:

Mori took a pay cut like you guys wouldn't believe.

I don't think right now that High Stakes Poker is having an easy time putting poker players together to play season 6.

Poker After Dark... it should be on at two o'clock in the morning because it really is like Valium, it's like a Xanax, it's the most boring, slow-paced show. And World Poker Tour the banter between those two guys is so phony and false and fake... it should be Poker After Death.

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2 Months 2 Million Likely To Return, Plus My Thoughts On The Show

2009-10-26T23:06:00.007-04:00

KRANTZ was on Episode 41 of the Deuce Plays podcast. If you want to know how the show was made you should listen to it, since it's the most detailed description I've heard. Some of the interesting points:

G4 has 90 days after the first run to decide if they want a second season. Ratings have exceeded expectations, so Jay is confident it will get renewed. 2 Months 2 Million is the most expensive show G4 ever produced. It's gotten strong word of mouth, so viewership has increased week after week. New G4 viewers also came to the network just to watch it. This is the first reality show for G4, a division of Comcast. The show has been heavily pirated, which surprised them, but they policed it pretty actively. They can't stream 2 Months 2 Million or offer it internationally until 90 days after the first run because of contractual arrangements (there have been a lot of complaints from people unable to watch it). Some viewers have suggested changing up the player lineup, but Jay doesn't like the idea: they've all been friends for years, and they might not even want to do it if the lineup was changed. Jay didn't want the show to be called 2 Months 2 Million because they didn't know if they could achieve that goal (though they had done so the previous two summers). Big no-limit hold 'em games didn't run too much over the summer, which hurt their earnings. Pot-limit Omaha ran more often, but they aren't big PLO players. They'll probably spend time learning PLO and mixed games before next summer's show. Additionally, the four of them are well known to their opponents now, so it's hard for them to get action. KRANTZ was new to UltimateBet, so he was able to get good action there. They didn't actually stumble upon Erica Schoenberg at a pool and set up a match, as the show suggested: it was a reality-TV setup. There was a process of coming up with episode ideas, like going dune buggying. There were arguments over what the players wanted to do, and producers' ideas that they didn't want to do. In the club scenes there would be signs up saying that filming was going on, and people would have to sign release forms. The stuff around pools generally wasn't set up, but sometimes the girls were miked up. The players weren't allowed to talk about the cameras, so they came up with stories like Emil being a prince from Dubai. Jay says the single guys pulled mad tail over the summer, but the producers chose to portray them as a lot dorkier than they are, e.g. showing Dani being shot down by his Connect Four date when in reality they dated for a while. Jay described a typical day while shooting the show and the process of making the show, e.g. the cameras weren't there continuously: they arrived late each morning. The four of them went to a lot of places where the cameras couldn't get in to film them, e.g. nightclubs. 2 Months 2 Million was more documentary style than other reality shows according to the staff that worked on it. They had one day off a week, though that could still be dominated by show work like G4 publicity. They were often drained by the end of the day.

They did talk about some non-show things as well. The guys would like to play live more often because of the weaker competition, but they would have to get used to the deeper stacks. Jay hasn't put a lot of work into his game in the last year since he's been working on his business DeucesCracked, the show, and writing a screenplay. Without working at poker constantly he can't remain at the top.

My thoughts on the show:

I love online poker so I anticipated it eagerly, and after the first episode I said it was the most exciting poker show I'd seen since the first episode of High Stakes Poker, maybe ever. My enthusiasm for it quickly waned, however, as it proved to be all short-attention-span theater, no meat. My favorite comment on it from the message boards was "ooh, shiny things!" I've seen brilliant reality shows before, and each of them was great because I got to know and root for a favorite character to win a competition. With 2 Months 2 Million, however, we don't get to know the characters at all, and the show isn't a competition format. Editing in slurping sounds over pictures of Emil drinking through straws seems to be the producers' idea of character development. As mentioned above, they even showed Dani being blown off by a girl he actually dated in order to keep up their preselected characterization of the four guys as nerds. The best character development I remember from the show was when they briefly delved into a guest star's debate about whether to go to college or be a poker pro. Despite all that, I enjoyed the show, am sad the season is over, and look forward to seeing it again. I've seen much better-made reality shows, however, and if it weren't about a subject I love I wouldn't have kept watching 2 Months 2 Million.

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Million Dollar Challenge "The Highest Rated Poker Show in US History"

2009-10-22T02:39:00.001-04:00

Daniel Negreanu wrote about Million Dollar Challenge's ratings in a recent blog:

I am SO very happy with the show. Wow, just amazing numbers in terms of viewers and I really think the show hits a demographic that is mostly totally new to poker and likely doesn't watch shows like PAD, High Stakes Poker, or even the WSOP. The whole point of creating the show was to introduce people to poker in a format that they are more comfortable with: a game show format.

We retained 15% of the NFL audience with ratings of 2.1 million households and estimates at around 4 million viewers. That makes the show officially the highest rated poker show in US history. I'm still in a bit of shock!

As I mentioned in my preview blog about the show, as a poker player, when watching the show, you have to think about the bigger picture here. The target audience is NEW players. That's really good for ALL of you! It's certainly good for poker.

The poker is fast paced, but again, what that does is give the contestants a real chance at winning big money. If you have a deep, slow structure, they'd have a tough time getting through three players. The faster structure increases the luck factor, but there still is enough skill involved to make the play interesting- especially to players who are new to the game. The response as a whole has been overwhelmingly positive.

In contrast to Million Dollar Challenge's 4 million viewers, Face the Ace pulled in 1.6 million during its premiere, and that was during prime time.

The next episode of Million Dollar Challenge airs November 22.

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Doyle Brunson Hates the Poker-Based Game Shows

2009-10-22T00:29:00.006-04:00

From Doyle Brunson's blog:

No disrespect intended, but these poker shows are awful. Full Tilt’s “Face the Ace” and Poker Stars “Million Dollar Challenge” are so bad, it’s embarrassing. There is no skill involved in either show and I can’t imagine getting an audience that will watch the shows. As I travel around, the High Stakes cash games are the ones all the fans talk about and I agree with them that they are by far the most interesting.

Doyle has said he's a poker purist, and I am too. One of my favorite Doyle quotes was when he said, while playing a tournament on Poker After Dark, that he preferred real poker (by which he meant cash games) to tournaments. On a different episode of that show Patrik Antonius also said he preferred real poker. One of my favorite editorials, The High Stakes Poker Episode That Only Showed Seven Hands, was also mostly composed of Doyle quotes.

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Shuffle Up and Deal: New Poker-based Game Show

2009-10-12T18:11:00.002-04:00

Shuffle Up and Deal looks to be the next poker-based game show to hit the air, joining Face the Ace and Million Dollar Challenge. The show doesn't seem to involve actually playing poker: BuzzerBlog says:

Shuffle Up and Deal pits five amateur poker players against each other, competing to build the best hand possible, from cards picked from an oversized electronic poker board. The player with the most money at the end of the show has a chance to win up to $1,000,000 on a single hand.

They're looking for contestants for production in November. No network deal has been announced yet. Oates Media Group principals Dewey Oates, Brenda Prackup, Robert "Chip Burner" Turner, and Marsha Waggoner created the show and Valcom will produce and distribute it.

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WSOP Ratings Up 11%

2009-10-12T15:11:00.002-04:00

Through 11 weeks of coverage ESPN's 2009 WSOP ratings are up 11%, to .91 from .82. Ratings among males aged 18-49 and 25-54 were up even more, 12% and 16% respectively. Those demographic are important to advertisers like PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and UltimateBet. The final table starts filming at noon Pacific time on Saturday, November 7, so you may want to avoid poker media from then till you watch the final table on Tuesday, November 10.

Source: Poker News Daily.

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Will WSOP HORSE Return to TV? Plus More on Schedule Changes

2009-10-07T21:03:00.001-04:00

The limited number and variety (all no-limit hold 'em) of televised events at this year's WSOP has come in for a lot of criticism, especially the absence the $50,000 HORSE tournament from TV. ESPN's Doug White says "We heard that loud and clear. I'm not ruling out that HORSE won't be back for 2010." WSOP Communications Director Seth Palansky says "Unless it goes back to no-limit hold’em (for the final table), the event will exist, but the television component probably will not." White doesn't agree, however, saying "It’s not so much what the H.O.R.S.E. event has to do as it is what else might be out there that we think would be compelling."

I'm not optimistic that we'll get much variety next year. WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack says "ESPN knows how to program its channel better than anyone else. They know what poker fans are interested in watching. Historically the Main Event always does the best by far." The Champions Invitational and $40,000 no-limit hold 'em events won't be back next year, despite the good turnout for the latter. Some feared that the $40,000 tournament would erode the Main Event's position as poker's unofficial championship. What will there be next year? More $1000 events. The Stimulus Special this year sold out, and about six $1000 tournaments are expected on the 2010 schedule. When asked about the prestige of bracelets, Steve Zolotow said: "I’m trying to think of a delicate way to say this … They talk about (things like): 'We don’t want to have a turbo event because it would demean the prestige of a bracelet.' To me, bracelets are nice, but they’re giving away more than 50 a year. They’re pretty much demeaned at this point. You can win a $1,000 crapshoot and get a bracelet." I commented on the declining value of bracelets and the potential erosion of the Main Event's prestige in my 2009 WSOP TV Schedule Analysis.

The 2010 WSOP schedule will be released later this year.

Sources:

WSOP Ratings Slightly Up as ESPN Begins Day 2 Coverage, CardPlayer.com
WSOP heads into Europe stronger than ever, PokerListings.com
$40K Hold'em Event Unlikely to Return to 2010 WSOP, CardPlayer.com

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Poker on TV Update: WSOP To 9 PM, Million Dollar Challenge

2009-10-06T01:59:00.001-04:00

The World Series of Poker broadcasts move back an hour (to 9 and 10 PM) starting today.

The Million Dollar Challenge starts airing at 4:30 PM Sunday on Fox. Note that it airs after football, so it may start late.

The EPT London live stream airs at 7 AM on Tuesday (TV table) and Wednesday (final table).

Poker After Dark is in rerun till December.

This week's newsbites:

AJ Benza is claiming they might replace him with a female cohost on High Stakes Poker season 6. Pokerati has the satellite radio clip.
ESPN will be airing the Caesars Cup and WSOP Europe in early February. It looks like two hours for the former and 8 hours for the latter.
Krantz had a couple of interesting blog posts about 2 Months $2 Million. In one he talks about interesting deleted scenes. In the other he defends the $2 million goal, saying, among other things, that they'd made at least two million dollars each of the previous two summers.
The September 25 Ante Up podcast has an interview with Kirk Fallah of Windy City Poker Championship. It starts at the 36 minute mark, and is a fascinating account of how the show is made on a low budget (summary).
The Sports Legends Challenge is officially kaput: Their parent company was sued by the Venetian over bailing out of a planned event, and they shut down their office. Pokerati summarizes the mess.

Check our poker on TV schedule for the full list of shows running new episodes.

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Poker on TV Update: Poker Players on Amazing Race, New Poker After Dark

2009-09-25T03:04:00.002-04:00

Next week's Poker After Dark is a tourney, "USA vs. Italy," featuring Chris Ferguson, Howard Lederer, Erick Lindgren, Marco Traniello, Max Pescatori and Dario Minieri.

Poker players Maria Ho and Tiffany Michelle are featured on the latest season of Amazing Race, premiering Sunday at 8 PM on CBS.

The final table of the Monte Carlo Ante Up for Africa tournament airs Saturday at 2:00 PM on CBS. I thought the first episode was below average.

The EPT London High Roller event will be streamed live on Friday, Oct 2 at 8 AM.

Those of you that get Comcast SportsNet Chicago can catch the latest episode of Windy City Poker Championship at 8 PM Central Sunday night.

This week's newsbites:

WSOP ratings were reportedly up 11% this year through four weeks of Main Event shows.
UK PokerNews.com had an interesting interview with Eddie Hearn of Matchroom, the major British poker TV producer.
There's a report that PokerStars's North American Poker Tour will finally be announced in October.
2 Months $2 Million updates: KRANTZ made an interesting post about 1) how they had to negotiate with the production company to get enough time to play poker and 2) how the chronology of the show was altered from real life. The opportunity opened up for Ansky by the show was apparently moving to DeucesCracked, the training site founded by KRANTZ.

Check our poker on TV schedule for the full list of shows running new episodes.

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Ante Up for Africa on CBS

2009-09-18T16:48:00.002-04:00

CBS will be airing the Ante Up for Africa tournament which ran before the EPT Monte Carlo over the next two Saturdays, the 19th at 1:30 PM and the 26th at 2:00 PM.

The next Poker After Dark is a tourney featuring Chris Ferguson, Howard Lederer, Doyle Brunson, Daniel Negreanu, Phil Ivey, and Phil Hellmuth.

We recently added another way to follow us: a Twitter feed.

This week's newsbites:

Most of the details about High Stakes Poker season 6 have emerged, other than the lineup: they'll film 13 episodes starting November 11 and air them starting in February.
There is a new largest pot in TV poker history: $1.1 million. It happened during the filming of Million Dollar Cash Game season 4 (spoilers), which will air on Sky Sports (we don't get it in the US) in January 2010.
Norman Chad was on the September 4 Ante Up podcast. We get some humor, his opinion that the viewers don't care about poker, how he got the job, some information about the production process, how he gets criticized for his commentary (notably comments about Josh Arieh), etc.
Someone sued Face the Ace for copying his idea. There are similarities, e.g. choosing pros from behind doors, and his idea dates back to at least 2007, but Full Tilt claims they've been working on the idea since 2005 according to Pokerati.

Check our poker on TV schedule for the full list of shows running new episodes.

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Face the Ace Saturday, 2 Months $2 Million Moves

2009-09-11T05:25:00.006-04:00

There's a new episode of Face the Ace on Saturday at 2 PM on NBC. We're promised that it will be more like a game show this time, with "improvements" such as the audience rushing the stage during all-ins (1, 2).

2 Months $2 Million moves to Wednesdays at 8 PM on G4. This Sunday they're showing a marathon of the previous episodes starting at 9 PM.

The European Cash Game 2 will stream live from Poker Channel Europe on Monday the 14th starting at 7 AM.

Poker After Dark's terrific cash game lineup continues next week.

The last episode of Sam's Game has aired.

This week's newsbites:

The International Poker Players Association hopes to get the championship event of their mixed-game tournaments televised.

Check our poker on TV schedule for the full list of shows running new episodes.

Triple your online poker earn rate the easy way: start playing at Bodog (review). You can also bet on sports from the same account. - Advertorial by FSJ

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Blockbuster Poker After Dark Cash Game

2009-09-04T02:58:00.006-04:00

Poker After Dark returns next week with a blockbuster cash game featuring 4 of the most exciting players in the world, Tom "durrrr" Dwan, Patrik Antonius, Ilari "Ziigmund" Sahamies, and Phil Ivey, plus Howard Lederer and Eli Elezra. The game runs for two weeks at 2:05 AM Tuesday through Saturday (late night Monday through Friday) on NBC.

Heartland Poker Tour returns for its fifth season next week. It airs on local channels and satellite, so you should check an online programming guide for the time/channel in your area.

EPT Live is streaming EPT Barcelona next week: a TV table airs Tuesday at 6:30 AM and the final table airs Wednesday at 8 AM.

This week's newsbites:

The Caesars Cup added four players (Doyle Brunson, Jennifer Harman, Patrik Antonius, and Ilari Sahamies) and revealed it's odd format (mostly "doubles" matches where players alternate streets or hands).
2 Months $2 Million star Dani "Ansky" Stern is moving on from Poker Savvy, the training site he worked for, to pursue unspecified opportunities opened up by the TV show.
The Sports Legends Challenge was postponed amid allegations of unethical behavior.
Rounders House promises to be the first poker reality show online, with streaming video of players in a house 24 hours a day (press release).
Pool player Blair Thein is trying to fund a show that combines poker and mixed martial arts with his sport.

Check our poker on TV schedule for the full list of shows running new episodes.

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Eric Drache Talks About High Stakes Poker

2009-08-30T20:19:00.005-04:00

Eric Drache talked about High Stakes Poker season 6 on the latest 2+2 Pokercast. They start talking about TV 43 minutes into the show. A summary:

They expect to tape at least 13 weeks of High Stakes Poker in the first week of November, right after taping Poker After Dark. Eric says he does more of Poker After Dark and Mori Eskandani does more of High Stakes Poker.

They're having meetings about who to invite to High Stakes Poker soon. They like loose players that talk a lot. They always like fresh money in the game, even if the players are bad for the game. People regularly approach them wanting to play in the game, but they've had a remarkably-high cancellation rate among those players so they'll require people they don't know to send money to the casino three weeks in advance.

The million-dollar buyin game a while back tightened up the game, and they're trying to find the right stakes. They hate prop bets and sportsbetting because it can dominate the table talk and viewers don't understand it, but that's what players like to do so they're trying to find the right balance.

Mori Eskandani estimated that Poker PROductions (which does High Stakes Poker, Poker After Dark, National Heads-Up Poker Championship, and other shows) has produced about 530 hours of televised poker content. There was also some discussion of casting for the National Heads-Up Poker Championship.

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Caesars Cup, America vs. Europe, To Be Aired By ESPN

2009-08-26T17:05:00.008-04:00

The Caesars Cup is a made-for-TV poker show being shot during the WSOP Europe which pits America against Europe. It has an odd format: the first two matches will be "doubles" matches, where players alternate betting streets. Next will be two more doubles matches where the players alternate playing full hands every second hand. After that, the teams will compete in regular heads-up matches until one team has four wins, earning the Caesars Cup. The captains are choosing teams of eight players, with the following chosen so far:

Team Americas: Daniel Negreanu (captain), Phil Ivey, Phil Hellmuth, John Juanda, Doyle Brunson, and Jennifer Harman.
Team Europe: Annette Obrestad (captain), Peter Eastgate, Dario Minieri, Bertrand Grospellier, Patrik Antonius, and Ilari "Ziigmund" Sahamies.

ESPN previously announced that they would air 10 hours of the WSOP Europe, taking place in September, in the US.

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