The Poker PROducers showing they can feed the poker die-hards:

This week, and next, Poker After Dark is forgoing its usual $20,000 short-handed sit-n-go (yawn) for a Full Tilty high-stakes cash game with a $100k min and $250k max buy-in. (No rebuys maybe? Not sure … ). The players: Tom Dwan, Patrik Antonius, Phil Ivey, and Gus Hansen + Daniel Negreanu (representing PokerStars) and Phil Hellmuth thrown in for good measure.

I’m guessing Mori Eskandani doesn’t know who Isildur1 is either?

While PAD generally makes solid stumble-upon viewing, it’s been a while since they’ve assembled such a unique game that should play as real what everyone’s been watching on their computer screens lately. Sounds like there should be a lot of interesting (big) hands … and you gotta wonder just how much at least four of these people really want to give up about their cash-game play under the watchful eye of the hole-card cam.

I also wonder: would they ever do a similar show with the game being Omaha? The biggest hands (in history) these days seem to be playing out mostly in PLO … but conventional poker wisdom says, supposedly, that non-Texas hold’em doesn’t play well on TV.

Just curious. We all know the presidential election has been a boom for Saturday Night Live’s ratings … tonight I was watching to see John McCain’s guest appearance. Gotta say, he was pretty damn good:

The host was Ben Affleck — real poker player — and in the group farewell, it was like a sincere, conciliatory ovation to the honorable senator. Majillions had to be watching … and from that scene, at least here on Cox cable in Las Vegas, it went right to Poker after Dark. (And a good episode, too! Mike Matusow vs. all previous champs, director’s cut.)

Certainly at least a few folks (thousand? hundreds of thousands?) had to be drawn into poker for their first time in a while with that fortunate positioning, right?

More…

What starts out as background talk between Eli Elezra and Patrik Antonius during the Poker After Dark cash game last week ends up getting Howard Lederer’s panties in a severe wad … not just when Antonius extols the greatness of being able to play online anonymously, but even more uncomfortably when Elezra (wearing a Full Tilt patch) confesses: “I have 17 accounts on Full Tilt.”

About 2:10 is where the relevant discourse starts:

Seriously, this is such an issue that online poker will eventually have to deal with in some way. Get the feeling if one of the online rooms launched a multi-accounting crackdown, they might lose half their players/avatars? It’s a rule the online sites have in place for the sake of security and game integrity, or at least as a component of legal disclaimer. And yet it’s counter-intuitive to one of the things that makes doing anything online, let alone poker — semi-anonymity — desirable.

The same issue is relevant at PokerStars … and for now, because both these operations, FTP and Stars, operate outside the (American) law*, the fates of players in violation of this unpopular rule — and the money in their accounts — is left to the discretion of an unregulated company, in an anything but an open forum.

* Not saying these are illegal businesses … just noting that they operate off-shore, and therefore fall outside American jurisdiction in most legal and business matters.

Will be curious to see if Elezra faces any sort of patch suspension for his “breakthrough” during poker therapy. Lederer has been super-diligent about protecting the integrity of “Play with the Pros” ever since Phil Hellmuth got called out for letting an amateur friend play as “Phil Hellmuth” on UB. But then again, perhaps Elezra has a solid defense: “just kidding … trying to put Howard on tilt in a cash game setting.”

Also curious if we’ll ever see the likes of Justin Bonomo consulting online sites the way reformed shoplifters get hired to advise retail corps on how to limit their losses from grift.

Link props: Wicked Chops

photo: Steve Hall / Pokerfolio

There probably wouldn’t have been a Chris Moneymaker without this guy. The same might be said about a new season of HSP.

Yesterday was supposed to be the day we learned the future of the World Poker Tour. No such luck. However, WSOP stalwart monopodder Steve Hall hears from Eric Drache, who was playing in Day 1 of the $10,000 7-stud World Championship, that High Stakes Poker will be back. The word is that HSP, along with Poker after Dark, will be moving from the South Point Casino back to the Golden Nugget. High Stakes will reportedly begin filming new episodes in August.

No info yet on time-buys or even what network will be airing the show(s) — but all indications point toward NBC. Drache is one of those important poker people who few of us have heard of — his last cash coming in 1991, where he finished 5th in a 7-stud event in Laughlin. But since then he’s gone on to manage all sorts of card rooms — including the Golden Nugget — and most recently has served as a consultant for NBC.

Drache is also the guy credited with creating the concept of tournament satellites and the “must move” table, according to Wikipedia.

UPDATE: It’s possible but not likely we are wrong on this. Less traceable thirdhand sources are saying no way this is happening at the Golden Nugget.

We discussed a poorly received tourney idea on Beyond the Table a year ago — the concept being a “men’s minority event.” I loved the idea because we’ve all played dudes-only before and women have ladies tourneys … but while all women players have been the only representative of their gender at a table before, that’s a dynamic that guys simply don’t get to experience.

Psychology would be fun, results would be interesting …Logistics was the tough part — how to limit the field to 10 (or 15) percent men and still attract the necessary entries. But one thing we never considered was a simple invitational sit-n-go.

So much to my delight, the new episode of Poker after Dark just came on and lo and behold the players this week are Gus Hansen, Vanessa Rousso, J.J. Liu, Clonie Gowen, Beth Shak, and Erica Schoenberg. Very cool — well cast with Gus, who knows they know he knows they know he can be a tad horny influenced by his respect for the ladies.

“We should make all the guys play this format one time,” Clonie just said. Barack Obama presumably agrees, as he just sat down for a very similar 6-handed sit-n-go on The View:

(L to R) Vanessa Rousso, Clonie Gowen, Gus Hansen, J.J. Liu, Beth Shak, and Erica Schoenberg appear this week on Poker after Dark.

After catching up on the week’s Poker After Dark episodes, I want to jump out of a window.

This week featured Jamie Gold, Mike Sexton, Mike Matusow, Antonio Esfandiari, Paul Wasicka, and Alan Boston. For those who don’t know Boston, he is evidently a well-known seven-card stud player and college basketball handicapper.

Matusow is known for his self-deprecating talk at the tables, but he somehow balances it with some humor and friendly conversation. Never thought I’d say this, but he was pleasant to watch as compared to one of his competitors.

Boston’s constant negative yapping caused the other players to roll their eyes, laugh (at him), and seemingly restrain themselves from telling him to shut up. Time and time again, he lamented that he never got a hand, couldn’t figure out the hole card camera, didn’t have his chips in the right place, couldn’t drink what he wanted, and desperately wanted to go home. As a viewer, I wanted to turn off the TV but wanted more to see who would suck out on him to send him away.

And this guy is a Full Tilt pro? I bet he hates that, too.

I’m sure Boston is a nice guy in real life. Let’s keep him there and off my television.

Thoughts from anyone else?