En lieu of certain poker shows being in limbo such as High Stakes Poker, it’s nice to see one show that is proving to be a main stay on network television. NBC has decided to renew Poker After Dark for yet another season after its quality ratings called for the show to be brought back. But there will be a twist to the fourth season of Poker After Dark.
Possibly in an attempt to fill the void for High Stakes Poker (which may never be seen on TV again), Poker After Dark has decided to switch the successful format of deep stack tournament to high stakes cash games. And things might be more exciting than ever with this new format.
That’s because the blinds are said to reach $200/$400 and the minimum buy-in for the episodes will be $100K to $250K. Plus there are already highlights from the first episode out featuring stars like Phil Hellmuth and Tom “durrrr” Dwan in heated competition.
One can only imagine how interesting the table talk will be in this season of Poker After Dark with Hellmuth and Dwan involved. Last time these two met in a NBC event they were exchanging quite a few comments with each other.
Hellmuth kept calling Dwan “son” in saying things like, “Son, I would tell you this much, son. I would never have put more than $3k in the pot with two tens before the flop.” Dwan fired back saying, “I was gonna’ say good game, sorry for the suck out, but when you phrase it that way it makes me not wanna. Phil, that’s why you lose money online. Pick your stakes heads-up. We can play right now if you want.”
With the new format and the interesting personalities like Dwan and Hellmuth at the table, it will be fun to see how this new season of Poker After Dark shakes out!
That starts tomorrow and I can’t wait. They will still have more weeks with the tournament format, but I like that they’ll have the cash games and a heads up week as well.
Here is the Poker After Dark Season 4 Schedule:
Week of July 14 – Cash game: Tom "durrrr" Dwan, Phil Hellmuth, Mike Baxter, Allen Cunningham, Guy Laliberte, David "Viffer" Peat
Week of July 21 – Tournament: Brian Townsend, Doyle Brunson, Tom "durrrr" Dwan, Johnny Chan, Huck Seed, Andrew "good2cu" Robl
Week of July 28 – Heads-up: Phil Hellmuth, Ted Forrest, Paul Wasicka, Chris Ferguson
Week of September 22 – Tournament: Mike Matusow, Phil Laak, Phil Hellmuth, David Williams, Clonie Gowen, Gavin Smith
Week of September 29 – Tournament: Mike Matusow, Phil Hellmuth, Mike Sexton, Jennifer Harman, Gavin Smith, Paul Featherstone (online qualifier)
Week of October 6 – Tournament: Jay Heimowitz, Howard Lederer, Mickey Appleman, Dan Harrington, Steve Zolotow, Mike Shichtman
Week of October 13 – Cash game: Patrik Antonius, Dee Tiller, Howard Lederer, Doyle Brunson, Gabe Kaplan, Eli Elezra
Week of November 10 – Tournament: Andy Black, Lee Watkinson, Dewey Tomko, David Williams, Allen Cunningham, Mike Matusow
Week of November 17 – Tournament: Todd Brunson, Phil Hellmuth, Phil Gordon, Gabe Kaplan, Cory Zeidman, David Grey
Week of November 24 – Tournament: Brandon Adams, Chris Ferguson, Andy Bloch, Bill Chen, Jimmy Warren, David Sklansky
This looks like a great lineup. It seems like there’s at least one major personality in every episode so it should be fun to watch all season long.