All this week, “Poker After Dark” is hosting a $50K Idol game featuring five young guns battling poker legend Doyle Brunson. Each player received a starting stack of 50,000 in the unique sit and go and the blinds began at 300/600. You can catch “Poker After Dark” nightly at 2:05am ET on NBC.
Brunson was far from chatty during Monday night’s episode. Instead, Full Tilt Poker pros Andrew “luckychewy” Lichtenberger and Tom “durrrr” Dwan provided most of the soundtrack. “Poker After Dark” makes its home at Aria in Las Vegas.
After the action was at a snail’s pace through the first half of the episode, the game picked up considerably. Inaugural World Series of Poker (WSOP) Europe Main Event champion Annette Obrestad was dealt pocket fives, raised to 1,500 before the flop, and Lichtenberger 3bet at to 4,100 with A-4. Obrestad came along and the flop of A-6-7 hit Lichtenberger hard. He disguised his hand by checking behind and the turn was a seven.
Obrestad, perhaps sensing that the flop had missed her opponent, fired a bet of 6,100 on the turn and Lichtenberger called behind. The river was a jack. Obrestad pushed out a big bet of 15,000, or three-quarters of the pot, and Lichtenberger called to scoop the 51,300-chip bounty with aces-up. Obrestad had quickly dropped one-third of her stack and “luckychewy” zoomed into the chip lead.
Lichtenberger later told “Poker After Dark” hostess Leeann Tweeden why he respects Brunson: “He’s one of the founders. He was out there doing it before we all were. We all certainly looked up to him when we were coming up and still do now.” Brunson has 10 WSOP bracelets and won the Main Event in 1976 and 1977. Lichtenberger added that he’s a fan of “Super System,” which undoubtedly influenced many of the $50K Idol table’s participants.
In the final sizable pot of the night, Melanie “Callisto 5” Weisner picked up Brunson’s eponymous hand, 10-2, and raised to 2,400 from the small blind after the action had folded around to her. Appropriately, Brunson was seated in the big blind and called with 6-4 to see a flop of 5-8-9.
Weisner made a continuation bet of 3,100 with ten-high and Brunson called with a gutshot straight draw. She was breathing quite heavily throughout the hand, while the veteran Brunson was calm and collected.
The turn was a seven, giving Brunson a straight, and he led out for 4,200 after Weisner checked. Weisner called and a jack on the river gave the youngster a straight of her own. She stacked up 9,800 in chips and Brunson called, shipping the pot of 39,000 to “Callisto 5.”
The table burst into laughter upon seeing that Weisner had drawn out on “Texas Dolly” with his namesake hand, which led “Poker After Dark” commentator Ali Nejad to observe, “The dangers of having a hand named after you.”
Weisner continued to dominate as Monday’s kickoff episode came to a close. After Lichtenberger raised to 2,200 before the flop with pocket fives, Weisner 3bet to 6,000 with Q-J. Lichtenberger quickly folded his pocket pair and the credits rolled on the first one-hour episode of the week.
Catch the $50K Idol sit and go on “Poker After Dark” all this week at 2:05am ET on NBC.