[ratings]

I’ve been slacking on this show for a while now. Cut me some slack, I have a day job and it’s on awfully late. Yeh, I know I have Tivo but, I haven’t gotten around to any of the episodes I’ve recorded before my kids delete them so that they can record another show from the Disney Channel. In any case I finally Tivo’d Poker After Dark this week and found a little time to watch it.

Six poker superstars!

One exclusive table!

$120,000 winner take all 1st place pot!

Sweet. Who couldn’t like this show? The answer is a lot of people if it wasn’t done right. You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a new poker show these days and some of them really suck. Fortunately, the folks over at NBC Sports obviously know what they’re doing. This show is very well done.

In case anyone reading also has other things to do between 2 and 3 AM every single night of the week, I’ll start with a little overview of the show. There are six pros per table. Unlike the big tournament shows, there are only pros. Think of it as an invitational. These six play to the last for the weekly prize. They use the standard WTP/WSOP setup on the screen showing the hands, bets, pot size, percentages, and community cards. The use of stacks of cash in addition to chips is interesting, but doesn’t really add anything, and in fact I thought was a little distracting. The set is very cool. There is a poker table is setup in a leather and hardwood lounge setting with a bar. During the show they do little interviews at bar. Interestingly enough play continues without the player being interviewed. Oh and they even pulled Shana Hiatt (formerly of the WPT) as the Hostess to do the interviews.

One of the things I especially like about this show is that since there is only a single table with 6 players and they can show 6 hours of play per week, they show a lot more of the hands. The big tournament shows tend to cut out a lot of the play and only show the best hands. The blinds are obviously rigged to keep the tournament within the hours set aside for that weeks series. This is cool because even the regular hands between these pros are fun to watch. You even get to see the pros make some mistakes.

There was way more table talk than I expected. I almost wonder if producers encourage them to chat it up to make the show more interested. The major coffeehousing that goes on during the game was definitely my favorite part of the show is. It’s cool to see the poker pros try to antagonize each other and get into each other’s head. This is a great show to learn how to mess with your friends at your weekly game.

I even liked the FullTilt Poker commercials at every break. Not that you really needed the commercials, since every single player at the table was wearing their FullTilt gear for the entire show (cowboy hat for Chris Fergusson, little black cocktail dress for Clonie Gowen (mmmmm nice.), and black shirts for the rest of the crew). A giant neon FullTilt sign behind the table would be more subtle.

Oh yeh, the one thing I didn’t mention was the poker. With poker all stars like Chris Fergusson, Clonie Gowen, Tony G, and Gus Hansen how could the play not be good. OK, it could happen, but in the episodes I’ve seen it hasn’t yet. I slept on this show way too long. Definitely worth some disk space on your Tivo show if you have a real job. If you’re up late playing online, you can watch it live baby! (unfortunately, I have a real job) Watch it.