Poker After Dark Returns, Full Tilt Player Patches Remain
On Monday night, “Poker After Dark” made its return to television on the NBC Sports Network. The Black Friday casualty featured prominent Full Tilt logos on three players; otherwise, any trace that the now dormant online poker room once sponsored the show appears to be gone. A $100,000 freezeout aired on Monday night that was originally filmed back in 2010, prior to Black Friday when Full Tilt was the second largest online poker room in the kingdom behind PokerStars.
FullTiltPoker.net logos continued appearing on players, which surprised a few in the online poker industry. Not among them was Steve Preiss, better known as “Chops” of Wicked Chops Poker, who told PocketFives on Tuesday, “You can’t erase the past, and any poker programming you watch from previous years will have Full Tilt logos somewhere in the broadcast. It still was a little odd, though, to those of us in the industry. To the mainstream public, they might not even know when these shows were filmed. To them, ‘Poker After Dark’ is just more poker programming.”
Why not blur out the Full Tilt Poker logos that were visible on three players: Huck Seed, John Juanda, and Phil Ivey (pictured above)? Would that be overkill? Preiss weighed in, “It seems like that could be cost-prohibitive. You can’t change history. It’s part of the poker past and it’s there now. It’ll be something we’ll see in rebroadcasts until they stop showing them.”
Full Tilt Poker logos were absent from the “Poker After Dark” table, on-screen graphics, and commercial bumps. A call placed to Poker PROductions, which manages the “Poker After Dark” franchise, was not returned at press time.
On TwoPlusTwo, players hungry for poker programming were buzzing over the return of the “Poker After Dark” franchise. However, not everyone was thrilled to see the show contain logos of a site that the U.S. Government believes was a global Ponzi schemeand has yet to pay players back nearly a year after Black Friday. One poster wrote, “Full Tilt shirt ads clearly visible. Ban.”
Other posters were disappointed that a brand new episode of “Poker After Dark” didn’t air. In that camp were comments similar to the following: “What a disappointment that they couldn’t put on a first-run episode. Argh.”
Turning to the episode that did air, each player began stacked with 100,000 in chips and plenty of Full Tilt Poker pros were represented. On a board of 9-K-9-4 with two clubs, Seed bet 17,000 with 10-9 for trips and Tom Dwan called with two clubs despite getting 2:1 on his money. The river was a red seven and Dwan folded to a bet of 45,000 from Seed, lowering his stack to 70,000.
Then, on a board of 5-A-10-6-3, Ivey checked for a third straight street over to Juanda, who bet 24,500 into a pot of 45,000 with K-Q for a busted straight draw. Ivey called with A-3, won a pot worth 94,000, and received the following remark from a laughing Dwan: “You can never be too careful.”
The episode itself featured six players who at the time had accounted for over $40 million in live tournament winnings and 18 World Series of Poker bracelets. Dwan was the only person in the building without a piece of hardware.
Phil OMGClayAiken Galfond (pictured) was also part of the lineup and checked with 7-6 on a flop of 10-9-8 for a 10-high straight. Erick Lindgren, armed with top pair, top kicker, bet 8,000 and Galfond called. The turn was a six and Lindgren once again fired out a bet, this time of 17,000. Galfond moved all-in over-the-top for 60,500 and Lindgren folded. With that pot, Galfond moved into the black for the night.
Galfond wasn’t done there, however. He scooped a pot worth 58,000 with just seven-high after betting 19,000 on a board of 2-3-Q-J with three hearts. Seed folded A-Q, while Dwan let go of air. Galfond joked, “I may have to go to the booth for that one,” referring to “Poker After Dark’s” on-set confessional. Galfond is reportedly in the midst of selling his New York penthouse, which comes complete with a slide, for $4 million.
The return of “Poker After Dark” continues on Tuesday night at Midnight ET on the NBC Sports Network and will air all this week. Check your local listings for station information.
