Poker After Dark Season 6 Begins
2009 saw a remarkable increase in the number of poker TV shows hitting the airwaves. Many of these new inventions were game shows, with offerings like Full Tilt’s Face the Ace and the PokerStars Million Dollar Challenge providing amateur players with the opportunity to compete for big cash jackpots via heads up tournaments.
These shows may have helped poker break into the mainstream, but they proved less revelatory for the hordes of dedicated poker fans. These savvy observers are far more likely to sing the praises of High Stakes Poker or Poker After Dark, where top pros gather together for an uninterrupted top quality play. So, it is with great pleasure, that the poker community welcomes the 6th season of Poker After Dark, which debuted on NBC this Monday.
Rather than packing their first show with the finest internet talent or a roster of well regarded pros, the PAD team decided to take a slightly left-field approach. Commentator’s Week III kicks off the new series, with a rowdy group of card callers and color experts on hand to compete in a $20,000 winner-takes-all Sit & Go.
Regular viewers will immediately recognize the voice, if not the face, of Ali Nejad. Poker After Dark’s regular commentator was released from his booth and let loose on the felt. Joining him were PokerRoad founder and UB.net pro Joe Sebok, The Professor Howard Lederer, and Mark Gregorich. This week also sees the first on-camera meeting of the new High Stakes Poker commentary team. Kara Scott is the former EPT hostess and is the only woman to have cashed in the 2008 and 2009 Main Events. She sat across the table from HSP stalwart Gabe Kaplan, who Kara will join later in the year when she fills A.J. Benza’s vacated shoes.
This week’s show is as much about the banter between the players as it is about analyzing expert poker play. Ali Nejad kicked things off in style, ribbing his former PokerRoad Radio colleague Joe Sebok about his reputation for consistently bubbling TV final tables. The PAD commentator revealed a tray of fine champagne, with which the whole table toasted Joe’s success in finally reaching a TV final table. The table-talk was so enthralling that a distracted Howard Lederer even managed to fold his hand pre-flop when he could have just checked.
With the week now halfway through, the table-talk and storytelling has continued unabated. But alongside the chatter has been some high quality poker play. Stepson of Barry Greenstein, Joe Sebok, demonstrated why he is such a well-regarded player when he took a big pot off veteran Gabe Kaplan in the first episode. Kara Scott played a very tight game, but was one of the few people to finish above her starting stack at the end of the night.
The second show brought even more talk and even more on-the-felt action. Kara Scott continued to impress, bluffing her new co-host Gabe Kaplan out of a pot. In what would prove to be the pivotal moment of the night, she then got herself all in with 8-8 against Mark Gregorich’s J-J. With just a chip and a chair left, it looked like the Canadian-born Brit would be the first casualty. Hanging on by her fingernails, Kara turned on the aggression and went all-in on 6 of the next 7 pots – her opponents folding every time. Still short, but definitely back in the game.
Posted by ingyen poker, Posted on February 16th, 2010 at 11:06 pm
One of the best poker shows ever I have seen. Hope the next poker eposide and season will come soon.