It took a few weeks and thousands of players but the 2010 WSOP has finally been narrowed down to a elite group of nine. The nine will play the final round of poker in November on television. Apparently, even today with the popularity of poker, main stream media still doesn’t get why anyone would want to watch all 57 events of the WSOP on TV; but hey, at least we get this final table.
Here’s the lineup:
Filippo Candio
Joseph Cheong
John Dolan
Jonathan Duhamel
Matthew Jarvis
Michael Mizrachi
Soi Nguyen
John Racener
Jason Senti
The final event of the WSOP consisted of good old fashioned No Limit Texas Holdem which, despite the numerous variations that exist in poker, remains the most popular way to play our favorite game of skill. Perhaps the popularity of Holdem was why there were over seven thousand entrants into this year’s events and 1,125 folks who handed over their $10,000 buy in for one last chance at gold.
The week long [...]

I headed over to the WSOP website this morning and was excited to see the welcome page feature the first scenes from the 2010 tournament. Row after row of tables waiting for the excited hopefuls to take their places and…dare I say it? Okay then, SHUFFLE UP AND DEAL.
Like most poker fans I am enjoying this cyber excitement around the super bowl of poker the WSOP main event. As we are still waiting for television coverage to begin and the live reporting from the uber poker blogs is just starting out, I don’t have much in the way of facts and figures to share. So it seems before things start getting a little hectic that we should recap the 2009 WSOP main event to see how the following seven weeks will stack up.
On May 27, 2009, the 40th annual WSOP main event began at the Rio All Suite and Casino in Vegas. There were over [...]

The Bayou Poker Challenge ended the 2009-2010 poker season and made Fred Berger a winner. This game of no limit holdem took place in the big easy and had 156 players who put down the five grand buy in money. Berger took home nearly $200,000 after a heads up match against Mike Beasley. He not only walked away with the biggest pay out of the day but a WSOP circuit ring to treasure. He can put it on the shelf next to his WSOP bracelet.
Having both the ring and the bracelet means Berger joins the five other poker professionals who hold both pieces of jewelry. Berger got the bracelet back in 2002 after heads up play with Chris Ferguson. Winning in New Orleans was a victory for this little known Louisiana boy who intends to give at least ten percent of his poker winnings to charity.
Fred Berger has been making his name in professional tournaments [...]

The news from the poker blog circuit is that the World Poker Tour folks are putting two not one French tournament on their schedule for this year. A few days ago, news broke that a French televised tournament would be taking place in May. Now it seems another French location is slated for a November poker tournament.
Because of its location France is ideal for many European players. Whether from Belgium, Germany or even the UK, poker professionals can make their way to France without too much trouble.  France is one of the hotter locations for European poker this year and televising the event in the United States will be a boost to the French card playing street credibility.
In May a leg of the WPT will be held at the Aviation Club in the country’s capital city of Paris. The game is no limits Texas Hold ‘em and it should make for interesting viewing at this [...]

A combination of reality TV and old school game show, the new poker show to air on Fox Sports “The Big Game” sponsored by PokerStars.net looks to be the latest addiction in the world of big money cards. It should be one of the summer’s poker hits providing fans of the game with at least 150 hands of action and audience participation.
It should make for interesting viewing. The minimum buy in is $100,000 ensuring some big names to watch on the screen. The ego explosion of the multi bracelet winners should be a great side entertainment as should the amateur wild card entrance.
They call the wild card the “loose cannon” and several online qualifiers will be playing the role with one amateur player at each final table. Qualifying games are being held between March and June and those that get into the final 200 have to send in a casting video to get on the [...]

Today is Tuesday August 3rd, which means that a new poker show will debut from ESPN. The show will only air on ESPN.com and is titled “Inside Deal.” Bernard Lee is the host of the program and the series premiere of the show will feature 2003 World Series of Poker Main Event Champion Chris Moneymaker.
Andrew Feldman, the ESPN.com Poker Editor, and Laura Lane, the ESPN The Magazine columnist will also be a part of the program with Lee. Lee is overly excited about the debut of the show saying “This is a show that is needed in the industry and it’s unique in its time. It’s going to be a solid show with ESPN production value. It’s really going to start setting the standard for poker shows.”
The show will air each week on Tuesdays on ESPN.com for three months and will end with the final table of the World Series of Poker Main Event in [...]

If you are a lover of the game of poker then you are in luck. There are so many poker movies, television shows, and live coverage of major poker events televised these days that fans of poker won’t get bored. First off, take a look at the World Series of Poker. This is an annual event that is so popular that the country’s major sports network, ESPN, carries it exclusively each year for almost the entire history of the tournament. So many people want to watch their favorite pro poker players but can’t afford to travel to Las Vegas so they have to watch it unfold on television.
So, if you enjoy poker so much that you can’t get enough of it there will always be something on television. FOX Sports Net and Comcast Sports Net constantly air poker tournaments that take place in Las Vegas, Atlantic City, and other cities around the country. These two [...]

This post, the sixth and final post in a series of posts detailing the top 10 poker television shows, details the top two honorable mention shows that didn’t quite make the cutoff of our top 10 list. The first show on our honorable mention list is Strip Poker. Strip Poker aired on the USA Network in 2000 and was hosted by Graham Elwood. The game pitted a group of guys against a group of girls. The card dealer on the show was Jennifer Cole.
At the start of the game, before a pair of cards came down a chute, the group of guys was asked a question about girl stuff. If the guys got the question correct they would then take control of the game. If the guys got the questions wrong the girls would be able to answer. If their answer was correct they would then take control of the game. But, if the girls [...]

This is part five of our top 10 poker television shows list and this article features the number two and number one shows on the list. Number two on the list is High Stakes Poker on GSN and number one on the list is The World Series of Poker on ESPN.
High Stakes Poker features one hour episodes that began airing on GSN in 2006. The show includes poker pros that buyin to hold’em games with a buyin of $100,000. All seasons of High Stakes Poker have been filmed at different locations in Las Vegas, Nevada. The show is currently in the middle of its fifth season, which began on March 1st of 2009.
Some of the poker players that have appeared on the show include the following:
Daniel Alaei, Doyle Brunson, Todd Brunson, Dr. Jerry Buss (LA Lakers owner), Fred Chamanara, Johnny Chan, Freddy Deeb, Eli Elezra, Antonio Esfandiari, Sam Farha, Ted Forrest, Barry Greenstein, Jennifer Harman, [...]

In this post, part four of our top 10 poker television shows, we feature shows number four and three. Show number four is Poker Royale and show number three is The World Poker Tour. Poker Royale aired on GSN while The World Poker Tour aired on the Travel Channel, GSN, and Fox Sports.
Poker Royale, number four on our list, aired briefly from 2004-2005. During that brief period there were actually seven series that aired. The show featured no limit Texas hold’em poker. Episodes of this show run as re-runs periodically on GSN. The show originally aired on Friday nights from 10-11pm as part of GSN’s Casino Night block. At the conclusion of the show the host was John Ahlers and the commentator was Robert Williamson III.
The shows tournaments featured a variety of different battles between different groups. One popular matchup was boys versus girls while another popular matchup was celebrities versus pros.
Show number three on [...]