Aussie Millions Cash Game To Air On Fox Sports

The Million Dollar Poker Cash Game, from the Aussie Millions tournament in January, will air on Fox Sports Net in March. 10 players will buy in for a minimum of $1 million Australian (about $680,000).

Source: press release.

Don't miss any poker on TV: sign up for our weekly newsletter or subscribe to our feed.

Poker After Dark Resumes Monday Night

Poker After Dark season four resumes Monday night with a tournament featuring Mike Matusow, Allen Cunningham, Dewey Tomko, David Williams, Lee Watkinson, and Andy Black. It's at 2:05 AM on NBC as usual.

This week's newsbites:

• The High Stakes Poker season 5 taping post has been updated to show the people who actually played. Check the comments of that post for all the reports from the taping. They'll apparently make 13 episodes out of it.
• The WSOP Europe is scheduled to start an eight-episode run February 1 on ESPN and ESPN 2.
  

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

Don't miss any poker on TV: sign up for our weekly newsletter or subscribe to our feed.

Barry Greenstein and Durrrr On High Stakes Poker

The Bear and Durrrr (Tom Dwan) at day three of the High Stakes Poker season five taping (click to enlarge):



Don't miss any poker on TV: sign up for our weekly newsletter or subscribe to our feed.

World Poker Tour Season 7 Premieres January 4

World Poker Tour season 7 premieres Sunday, January 4 on Fox Sports Net. As previously reported, they will generally divide the tournaments into two one-hour shows and Full Tilt Poker is sponsoring the shows. Amanda Leatherman will be conducting sideline interviews.

Source: press release.

Don't miss any poker on TV: sign up for our weekly newsletter or subscribe to our feed.

High Stakes Poker Season 5 Taping Updates

High Stakes Poker season 5 is taping now at the Golden Nugget. Following are the lineups (sources: CardPlayer, Pokerati):

Friday: Doyle Brunson, Dario Minieri, Phil Laak, Tom "durrrr" Dwan, Eli Elezra, Mike Baxter, Alan Meltzer, and David Peat.

Saturday: Daniel Negreanu, Joe Hachem, Howard Lederer, Patrik Antonius, Phil Laak, Antonio Esfandiari, Sam Simon, and Nick Cassavetes. Tom Dwan later replaced Sam Simon.

Sunday: Tom Dwan, Doyle Brunson, Eli Elezra, Peter Eastgate, David Benyamine, Barry Greenstein, Ilari "Ziigmund" Sahamies, and Daniel Negreanu.

Further updates from the taping are in the comments, below. You can subscribe to them if you want.

Don't miss any poker on TV: sign up for our weekly newsletter or subscribe to our feed.

High Stakes Poker Season 5 Premieres March 1

High Stakes Poker season 5 will premiere Sunday, March 1, at 9 PM on GSN according to CardPlayer.

Don't miss any poker on TV: sign up for our weekly newsletter or subscribe to our feed.

Interviews With Jeffrey Pollack, Henry Orenstein, and Jamie Horowitz

Gary Wise interviewed Jeffrey Pollack, Henry Orenstein, and Jamie Horowitz on his November 26 podcast. ESPN poker executive Jamie Horowitz said that reporting the WSOP Main Event final table results on ESPN before the broadcast may have been a mistake, and they may change that for next year. Hole-card cam inventor and High Stakes Poker producer Henry Orenstein gave slightly different information about the High Stakes Poker season 5 taping than GSN's earlier press release: he had it taping an extra day, December 22, with a $500,000 minimum buyin. The podcast runs 1 1/2 hours, but those were the most interesting nuggets to me.

Don't miss any poker on TV: sign up for our weekly newsletter or subscribe to our feed.

Streaming Poker Cash Game

The European Cash Game starts airing in Europe Friday and streaming on Poker Channel Europe on Saturday. It will run for seven weeks. Peter Eastgate, Andy Black, and Eric Liu are among the players.

Poker After Dark season 4 resumes the week after Christmas.

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

Don't miss any poker on TV: sign up for our weekly newsletter or subscribe to our feed.

How The WSOP Broadcast Is Made

Bluff had an article on the making of the WSOP broadcasts a while back. It's 10 pages long, but here are a few highlights.

Jamie Horowitz is the Executive Producer in charge of ESPN's poker programming. He took over in 2006 after launching the National Heads-Up Poker Championship on NBC. 441 Productions has had the contract to produce the WSOP for the entire hole-card cam era. Matt Marantz (the guy with ideas for football broadcasts) founded the company and Dave Swartz was his first hire. They use about 40 cameras, though 18 of them are the hole-card cams on the two TV tables. 7 producers with cameramen and soundmen cover the floor in sections, looking for stories and taping all-ins. They have a staff of almost 80, 55 in Las Vegas and 22 in New York, who log and edit tapes sent overnight. After the end of the WSOP they spend two more months editing. On the tournament floor they run things from behind a curtain. A woman there logs every action on the TV tables with pen and paper. Someone else logs each conversation. Behind another curtain someone watches the hole-card cam feeds to make sure they're working properly. Norm and Lon are actually at the WSOP, apparently to find stories.

Don't miss any poker on TV: sign up for our weekly newsletter or subscribe to our feed.

EPT Live Prague Coverage Starts Tomorrow

EPT Live coverage of Prague airs Friday from 6 AM and Saturday from 7 AM.

This week's newsbites:

• PokerStars added a Russian Poker Tour, though I haven't heard of any TV plans yet.
  
• Pro poker players didn't like the limited number of hands of the WSOP Main Event final table shown.

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

Don't miss any poker on TV: sign up for our weekly newsletter or subscribe to our feed.

High Stakes Poker Season 5 Players

High Stakes Poker season five players include the below, according to a preliminary list released by GSN.

New players:
Ilari "Ziigmund" Sahamies
Tom "durrrr" Dwan
Dario Minieri
Ivan Demidov
Peter Eastgate
Howard Lederer
Sam Simon
Nick Cassavetes
Giorgio Medici

Returnees:
Phil Ivey
Daniel Negreanu
Patrik Antonius
Barry Greenstein
Phil Hellmuth
David Benyamine
Doyle Brunson
Antonio Esfandiari
Phil Laak
Eli Elezra
Mike Baxter
Bob Safai

The press will be allowed into an area with monitors, so expect plenty of live reporting when this tapes.

Don't miss any poker on TV: sign up for our weekly newsletter or subscribe to our feed.

Poker After Dark Season 5 Schedule Announced

The Poker After Dark season 5 schedule was announced by NBC. There will be 13 weeks of shows (up from 10 in past seasons) premiering on February 16 (the three remaining weeks of season 4 will be shown first, starting December 29). Season 5 features seven weeks of cash games and six weeks of tourneys. The cash games will be $200/400 no-limit hold 'em with a min/max buy-in of $100,000/$250,000 (250 bb - 625 bb). Some of the cash game lineups are incredible, and one of them, Railbird Heaven, promises to show players flipping for stacks (Daniel Negreanu wrote about it on his blog, but beware of spoilers). The full Poker After Dark season 5 schedule is in the post below.

Fourteen new players will be seen in season 5:

• Ilari "Ziigmund" Sahamies
• Kenny Tran
• Dario Minieri
• Ivan Demidov
• John Phan
• Cole "CTS" South
• Taylor "Green Plastic" Caby
• David "Raptor" Benefield
• Max Pescatori
• Bob Safai
• Jason Alexander
• Orel Hershiser
• Don Cheadle
• Arnold Thimons (FTP qualifier)

Don't miss any poker on TV: sign up for our weekly newsletter or subscribe to our feed.

Poker After Dark Schedule, Season 5

Week of February 16, cash game, "Nets vs. Vets:" Taylor "Green Plastic" Caby, Cole "CTS" South, Gabe Kaplan, David "Raptor" Benefield, Doyle Brunson, and Eli Elezra.

Week of March 23, tourney, "Dream Table III:" Johnny Chan, Jennifer Tilly, Arnold Thimons (FTP qualifier), Mike Matusow, Phil Laak, and Daniel Negreanu.

Week of March 30, tourney, "International III:" Brad Booth, Allen Cunningham, David Benyamine, John Juanda, John Phan, and Ivan Demidov.

Week of May 4, cash game, "Hellmuth Bash I:" Tom "durrrr" Dwan, Kenny Tran, Phil Laak, Antonio Esfandiari, Phil Hellmuth, and Bob Safai.

Week of May 11, cash game, "Hellmuth Bash II:" Tom "durrrr" Dwan, Antonio Esfandiari, Kenny Tran, Phil Hellmuth, Bob Safai, and Phil Laak (same lineup as previous week).

Week of June 15, tourney, "Sit-n-Talk:" Jennifer Harman, Mike Matusow, Antonio Esfandiari, Jean-Robert Bellande, Vanessa Rousso, and David Grey.

Week of June 22, tourney, "Celebrities and Mentors:" Barry Greenstein, Jason Alexander, Phil Gordon, Orel Hershiser, Don Cheadle, and Gavin Smith.

Weeks not yet scheduled:

Cash game, "Top Guns:" Tom "durrrr" Dwan, Patrik Antonius, Howard Lederer, Eli Elezra, Ilari "Ziigmund" Sahamies, and Phil Ivey. This will run for two weeks.

Cash game, "Railbird Heaven:" Daniel Negreanu, Phil Ivey, Patrik Antonius, Tom "durrrr" Dwan, Gus Hansen, Phil Hellmuth, and David "Viffer" Peat. Peat and Hansen will switch off during the match. It will run for two weeks.

Tourney, "The Magnificent Six:" Chris Ferguson, Howard Lederer, Doyle Brunson, Daniel Negreanu, Phil Ivey, and Phil Hellmuth.

Tourney, "USA vs. Italy:" Chris Ferguson, Howard Lederer, Erick Lindgren, Marco Traniello, Max Pescatori and Dario Minieri.

You can find player biographies and the lineups for rerun weeks on NBC's web site.

Don't miss any poker on TV: sign up for our weekly newsletter or subscribe to our feed.