This month marks our first anniversary of Poker Night in America, which has been airing on CBS Sports Network as well as several Regional Sports Network around the country. The first show premiered the last Sunday in June in 2015. Since that time our team has produced 52 original episodes of Poker Night in America. Let me say that again…52 episodes! That’s a lot of TV.
My thanks to Matt, Tony, Aaron, the other Aaron, Jesse, Jason, Tucker, Chris, Nolan, Brian, Dave and all the guys on our crew for all your hard work. Producing one new episode a week for 52 weeks is a great accomplishment.
Here are some of the memorable moments from the past 52 weeks:
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A classic slow roll by Shaun Deeb against Mike Matusow.
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Poker Night at the Movies reviewed classic poker movie scenes with Jennifer Tilly, Richard Roeper and Phil Laak.
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The first ever Ladies Night cash game featured some of the best banter ever captured at a poker game. Not to mention Ebony Kenney putting Lauren Billings on her back and working out.
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Phil Hellmuth dressed up as a baby, and then was replaced at the table by a sunglass wearing cucumber.
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Gavin Smith drank a few Greyhounds (just a few)
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Tom “Donkey Bomber” Schneider displayed some fashion sense.
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Nolan Dalla went on a few rants, and then later got a great interview with the patriarch of poker Mr. Doyle Brunson.
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We crashed a home game across from the Washington Capitol when Phil Hellmuth and Robert Williamson III played some low limit stakes with Washington lawmakers and power brokers.
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There were magic tricks by Scotty Nguyen.
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Greg Mueller dusted off a stuffed envelope of cash.
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Darvin Moon and Joe Cada met up for the first time since their heads up battle for the WSOP main event in 2009.
The goal of Poker Night in America is to have fun. It’s about bringing the personality back to poker and to do so we invited poker’s biggest and best personalities to come and play and, most importantly, have some fun. I think we captured the spirit of poker as fun in the past year and plan to rinse and repeat moving forward. The audience seems to agree as Poker Night in America is getting great ratings and building a fanbase. Let’s see what we can do for an encore in the next 12 months.
And speaking of the next 12 months I’m very excited about our new project. Poker Night The Tour will start filming this August with plans to release a new series of hour long poker shows in early 2016 on network cable. The Tour will feature tournament final tables from around the United States (and beyond). Providing commentary will be two of the best in the busines: David Tuchman and Maria Ho. These shows will be traditional in the sense of showing poker tournament final tables but not traditional by offering in-depth stories as well as off-the-table action. We plan to introduce a few more poker personalities to the team in the next few weeks so stay tuned. Anyone can play the tour stops and have a chance at a national TV experience.
My favorite sports movie of all time is Bull Durham. During one memorable scene Crash Davis, catcher for the Durham Bulls, implores his team by saying, “This is baseball, this is supposed to be fun. So let’s have some fun dammit!!”
I think the same is true of poker. Last December Vanessa Selbst came to Florida and played our first Ladies Night. After it was over we interviewed her and she gave us a great quote saying she had more fun in that game then she’s had in a long time and said it reminded her of when she first started playing over ten years ago. Tom Schneider sent me one of the nicest letters last year after our first event in which he said his time on Poker Night in America was more fun than he’s “ever” had playing poker! And that “included winning bracelets.”
For us to grow the game of poker it needs to be fun. At Poker Night in America and Poker Night The Tour that’s what we plan to do. Come out and play!