Poker After Dark Season 5 Announced

Poker After Dark, NBC’s hit late night poker show, has announced its schedule and lineup for season 5. This season will feature many new players and more of the popular cash game shows.

The fifth season of Poker After Dark was filmed at the Golden Nugget Casino in Las Vegas. A Poker After Dark spokesperson told us the reasons for this choice: “(The Golden Nugget) is a fabulous casino. They’ve put so much money into it and renovated the place. The service is impeccable. They are wonderful.”

The upcoming fifth season will comprise 13 weeks’ worth of episodes that will be aired in 2009. The Poker After Dark representative told us more about what viewers can expect: “They can expect some things that they’ve that probably haven’t seen before. In season four, we tried a couple of cash games and I thought they were well-received, so we wanted to increase those because of the success we’ve had.” This means the show will not only feature the six-handed NL Hold’em winner-take-all tournaments it is famous for, but also seven weeks of mega-high stakes cash games.

Fourteen players make their Poker After Dark debut this year. The newest poker celebrities to play on TV are CardRunners pros Taylor “GreenPlastic” Caby , Cole “CTS” South and David “Raptor” Benefield, of whom the Poker After Dark spokesperson said: “They are great young guys and great players. They’ve made their marked and deserve recognition.” Caby and South have never appeared in a televised tournament before, in spite of their marked online success. They will be joined by players with a lot more screen time: poker-playing celebrities Don Cheadle, Jason Alexander and Orel Hershiser will be playing along with their poker mentors on what is set to be a memorable table. The newcomer roster is completed by Finnish online pro Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies, online qualifier Arnold Thimons, amateur Bob Safai, and professional players John Phan, Kenny Tran, Max Pescatori, Dario Minieri and Ivan Demidov.

These are some of Poker After Dark’s tournament line-ups for Season 5:

– “USA vs. Italy”: Beloved American players Chris Ferguson, Howard Lederer and 2008 World Series of Poker Player of the Year Erick Lindgren face Italian challengers Marco Traniello Max Pescatori and Dario Minieri.
– “Celebrities and Mentors” will bring together former MLB pitcher Orel Hershiser with former poker coach Gavin Smith; actor/comedian Jason Alexander with mentor Barry Greenstein and Oscar nominee Don Cheadle with former tutor Phil Gordon.
– “International Week”: no two players from the same country will grace this table, which will include Allen Cunningham for the USA, “Yukon” Brad Booth from Canada, David Benyamine from France, John Juanda from Indonesia, John “The Razor” Phan from Vietnam, and young Russian star Ivan Demidov.
– “Dream Match III”: online qualifier Arnold Thimons chose the players that comprise his dream table; he will now face Phil Laak, Jennifer Tilly, Mike Matusow, Johnny Chan, and Daniel Negreanu for his share of $120,000.

The cash game action will be No Limit Hold’em with $200/$400 blinds; buy-ins will range between a minimum of $100,000 and a maximum of $250,000. Straddles, props, “flips” and blind increases are allowed as long as all players agree, which will make for dizzying stakes very quickly.

These are two of the themed cash games in Season five:

– “Nets vs. Vets”: young online stars and CardRunner instructors Taylor Caby, Cole South, and David Benefield will face poker veterans Doyle Brunson, Gabe Kaplan and Eli Elezra for a clash of generations and styles expected to generate considerable interest.
– “The Hellmuth Bash”: 11-bracelet owner Phil Hellmuth will face his young foe Tom “durrrr” Dwan, as well as Antonio Esfandiari, Phil Laak, Kenny “Sick Call” Tran, and high-stakes amateur Bob Safai.

The show will be hosted again by Leeann Tweeden, while some commentary will be provided by Ali Nejad. More detailed information on the show, including air dates and participant info, can be found at www.nbcsports.msnbc.com/poker.