Unaired Poker After Dark Episodes to be Shown June 4 to June 16
Starting on Monday, June 4, two weeks of new episodes of the poker television series “Poker After Dark” will air on the NBC Sports Network. We probably should put the word “new” in quotation marks, as the two weeks of episodes in question were actually filmed in 2010 at the Aria in Las Vegas, but have never hit airwaves. The six contestants include David “Viffer” Peat, Eli Elezra, David Oppenheim, Patrik Antonius, Phil Ivey, and Tom durrrrDwan.
“Poker After Dark” formerly aired on the NBC mother ship late nights during the week and featured a Full Tilt Poker sponsorship. Whether any Full Tilt Poker logos on players’ clothing will be blurred out remains to be seen given the episodes have never aired, but what we do know is that the blinds will be $400/$800, with the button anteing $1,000 each hand. A promotional image made available to PocketFives showed Elezra, Antonius, and Ivey all wearing Full Tilt logos (pictured at the top of this article).
A teaser from show producers Poker Productions read in part, “A lot of money changes hands in this game, and, as such, viewers can expect a game filled with high intensity combined with numerous difficult and sometimes lengthy decisions.” The airing schedule is as follows, with each episode lasting 60 minutes:
Monday, June 4 at 12:30am ET
Tuesday, June 5 at 12:00am ET
Wednesday, June 6 at 12:30am ET
Thursday, June 7 at 12:00am ET
Friday, June 8 at 12:00am ET
Saturday, June 9 (Director’s Cut) at 1:30am ET
Monday, June 11 at 12:00am ET
Tuesday, June 12 at 12:00am ET
Wednesday, June 13 at 12:00am ET
Thursday, June 14 at 12:00am ET
Friday, June 15 at 12:00am ET
Saturday, June 16 (Director’s Cut) at 2:00am ET
“Poker After Dark” made its return to television in March of this year after departing the airwaves following Black Friday. The initial run consisted of repeats, with the first installment being a $100,000 freezeout originally filmed two years ago.
Full Tilt Poker logos continued to grace the screen on players’ clothing despite the site not having paid customers back after Black Friday. As Steve Preiss of Wicked Chops told PocketFives back in March, “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.”
The new two-week series marks the U.S. cash game debut of Oppenheim (pictured), who dropped out of college at the tender age of 19 to pursue a career in poker. According to “Poker After Dark” officials, Oppenheim “plays as high as $4,000/$8,000 and is considered one of the best Limit players in the world by his peers, something he says is more important to him than fame. [He] attributes in part his long-term success to his intense desire to win, which dates back to his competitiveness in sports while growing up.”
The NBC Sports Network launched in January after a re-branding of Versus. Its lineup includes shows like “NBC Sportstalk,” “NHL 36,” and “Costas Tonight.” It also airs Major League Soccer and Colonial Athletic Association basketball, among other sports.
Will you be tuned in starting June 4 for new episodes of “Poker After Dark” on the NBC Sports Network? What do you think of the Full Tilt Poker logos gracing the screen despite the site’s inability to pay back customers? Leave a comment here and let us know.
