First Impressions - Poker After Dark

I had heard many of my podcasts talking about this show, mostly due to the fact that Shana Hiatt makes her long anticipated return to poker. The first challenge was to actually find a way to watch this show. Since I live in Canada, or maybe because of where I live in Ontario the show wasn't airing on any of the channels to my disposal. I tried going to the website and even though the episodes were available for viewing I wasn't able to see them due to my location. Canada has very strict standards that they make Canadians follow when it comes to accessing television shows from America.

After a few days of frustration I finally found a site that was hosting torrents for the show. I'll have a review shortly regarding that site since it's easily the most kick ass site when it comes to Poker related torrents. I'm surprised that it took me so long to find it, but now that I have I'm sure that I will make good use of it. If I've peaked your curiosity, and you know what a 'torrent' is then feel free to go to www.thepokerbay.org for some terrific downloads.

So, I finally get to watch Poker After Dark and right off the bat there is quite a bit I enjoy about it. The format (a 6 person freeze-out, winner take all tournament) is ideal for TV, and gives viewers a chance to see how these types of tournaments should be played. Since the program takes a week to show just one 6 person sit and go they show a large percentage of hands and so you really get to see how the Pro's play their hands. By comparison, ESPN shows only around 10% or less of the hands during the tables they cover during the World Series of Poker.

The first thing that struck me is how a lot of the pro's were not playing their powerful pairs aggressively pre-flop. This trap-em strategy flies in the face to conventional poker wisdom, and it was nice to see pro's willing to change their style of play. It's also important to remember that all the players at the table were top quality caliber. The return of Shana Hiatt was also nice to see. You could tell that they didn't use her enough at the beginning of the week, and I'm sure in future episodes she will have more features on the show. On a side note, I listened to an interview with Shana and the Rounders Poker show where they were asking about the fact that the show is on late. It's on after Conan on weekdays and a special Directors Cut - wrap up episode is on after Saturday Night Live. She responded to the question by saying "Thank God for Tivo." I just wonder if she's going to get a call from someone at NBC reminding her that NBC makes money off of ads, which Tivo can delete, and therefore maybe she doesn't want to support a device that takes away the revenue that pays her salary. Just a thought...

All-in-all it was a great show to watch and contrary to other poker shows you can learn quite a bit from this one. Whether the show will be successful in the long run only time will tell. There are still some minor quirks to work out but I'm sure they will listen to the Players and the viewers and make the necessary adjustments.