Poker Night in America prepare to debut a new live celebrity cash game on the CBS Sports Network called Poker Night LIVE.
I have a choice. We all do. It’s Tuesday night, I can watch the Champions League highlights, or I can read a story about the world’s largest turnip to my 17-month-old daughter, giggling (internally of course), when I recite the line about the old girl pulling the old man. From March 20, and for 13-weeks beyond, I can make a different choice. I can watch the new show from Poker Night in America (PNIA).
Todd Anderson and the crew have created Poker Night LIVE. CBS Sports Network (PNIA’s home since 2014) will broadcast the action at 10 pm each Tuesday night from the 20th onward. The Gardens Casino, Los Angeles, California will have the microwave on standby so the crew can warm up their cold cups of tea.
Steve Ruddock is a man you can trust, and he said that Poker Night Live would be a live cash game featuring a lower buy-in than the $25/$50 PNIA lovers consume. Ruddock noted PNIA believe the lower buy-in will give the celebrities who don’t know what they’re doing (I added that part) a reason to get a little loose without losing much ballast.
Todd Anderson, President of Rush Street Productions, the father of PNIA said in a press release that he and his team had been trying to make poker more fun and friendly with famous faces and a fun atmosphere for the past four-years and reminds us that anything can happen on live TV.
And it has.
Who can forget the disastrous (or was it brilliant?) PNIA episode where Salomon “Hashtag King” Ponte burned imaginary cigarette holes into the hearts of Shaun Deeb and his wife? The poker community subsequently shunned Ponte after that appearance, reemerging a few months later in a video of some rather hard looking man kicking the shit out of him over an unpaid debt.
That would have made fantastic live TV.
So far, the only person confirmed to appear on the show is Joe Stapleton, and not in a position you’d expect. The commentator and comedian will exchange the mic for chips as he takes a seat in the table to liven the place up with his witty banter. I doubt Ponte will make a reappearance.
Will the new format be a success?
PNIA have the stats. I’m just a man searching for something entertaining. I wouldn’t tune in to see a bunch of celebrities playing in a cash game. Neither was I interested in watching a quartet of people trying to become a King of a very small Hill.
I pick the turnip.
It’s the turnip all day for me.
