“poker night in america” television show

Nolan Dalla on Aug 6, 2013 in Blog,[h=1]Debut Cast of “Poker Night in America” Television Show Announced[/h]





FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

DEBUT CAST FOR “POKER NIGHT IN AMERICA” TELEVISION SHOW ANNOUNCED


Rush Street Productions is pleased to announce the cast of poker players who will appear on the debut show of a new television series called “Poker Night in America,” scheduled to begin filming on August 8th at the Turning State Casino in Upstate New York.. The cast is comprised largely of well-known professional poker players, but will also include additional participants who play in the Empire State Poker Classic, which runs August 9-12.
Moreover, an open casting call was announced last week for a few of the remaining open seats for the televised cash game. The two players selected from a large pool of outstanding applicants were Kristy Arnett and Lauren Billings. Both will join a private jet full of poker players who will embark together and fly from Las Vegas to Rome, NY, later this week. Most players will be participating in both the televised cash game as well as the $1,500 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em Empire State Poker Classic Main Event. More information about the tournament (which is expected to draw a record turnout) can be found HERE.
The roster of participants/cast members who will be flying from Las Vegas to the Turning Stone Casino includes the following poker players:
Kristy Arnett
David “ODB” Baker
Lauren Billings
Shawn Buchanan
Eli Elezra
Layne Flack
Phil Laak
Mike “the Mouth” Matusow
David Levi
Greg “FBT” Mueller
Tom “Donkeybomber” Schneider
Gavin Smith
David Williams

In addition, several notable poker players who are already on the East Coast will be attending the event and have committed to playing. These players include, but are not limited to the following:
Nick “Nicky Numbers” Brancato
Shaun Deeb
Mike Dentale
Will “the Thrill” Failla
Matt Glantz
Darvin Moon
Amanda Musumeci
Greg Ostrander
Dennis Phillips
Dwyte Pilgrim
Travell Thomas

“Poker Night in America” is an edgy new television series and window into behind-the-scenes reality that has never been attempted before. Part real-life poker coverage, part unscripted reality television, this is the first program ever which shows what really goes on away from the tables and behind the cameras. Poker players and cast members will be followed around airports, casinos, golf courses, bars, restaurants, or wherever a compelling story takes place.
Additional details about this exciting new television series, including sneak previews, will be released and announced here as well as at the official Poker Night in America website. Additional shows are being planned for other locations, which will be announced this coming fall.
“Our mission is to revolutionize televised poker,” said Nolan Dalla, the show’s Creative Director. “We want to make poker fun again, and that starts with bringing in some of the game’s most entertaining personalities and turning on the cameras all over the place, and capturing the magic that we all know happens, but we rarely see on television. We want this to be a real game-change

This sounds pretty cool.

I will more than likely be tuning in. puff_>>

-murph

Eli Elezra is 5 times better than anyone on that list. 10 times better than most of them and not even playing the same game as a handful of them. Seriously Kristy Arnett at the same table with Eli? She might as well hand him her money....and her shirt. They must not be going to play with their own money..

ODB Baker and Deeb should torch the competition here.

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Follow Gavin Smith around for 4 days and watch him get belligerent and eat McDonalds.... that's "revolutionizing poker on television"?

Brotherwo said:

Follow Gavin Smith around for 4 days and watch him get belligerent and eat McDonalds.... that's "revolutionizing poker on television"?

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This actually sounds pretty good reality tv.

-murph

ProPokerPlayer said:

Eli Elezra is 5 times better than anyone on that list. 10 times better than most of them and not even playing the same game as a handful of them. Seriously Kristy Arnett at the same table with Eli? She might as well hand him her money....and her shirt. They must not be going to play with their own money..

Click to expand...

Releases tomorrow:

https://www.amazon.com/Pulling Trigger Autobiography Poker Elezra/dp/1880685604/ref=zg_bsnr_4414_10

there's a market for that book? WOW!! he was playing at the big table
a few years back and his wife/GF was playing at my medium limit table.
she is one nasty, condescending female and an average player at best
with a severe case of entitlement.

niltes said:

there's a market for that book? WOW!! he was playing at the big table
a few years back and his wife/GF was playing at my medium limit table.
she is one nasty, condescending female and an average player at best
with a severe case of entitlement.

Click to expand...

I'm skeptical that it's that great of a read, but it's being published by twoplustwo, which usually puts
out outstanding material, so I'll grab a copy once cheaper used ones are available on Amazon.


[h=2]Mason Malmuth January 2019[/h][FONT=&quot]It’s 2019 and our newest book Pulling the Trigger; The Autobiography of Poker Pro Eli Elezra by Eli Elezra with Matan Krakow and Yoav Ronel, and translated by Robbie Strazynski should now be available. As stated before, this book is a departure from what we normally do at Two Plus Two since it’s not a strategy text (but there’s lots of discussion of poker hands that Eli has played both in cash games and in tournaments).[/FONT]

Brotherwo said:

Follow Gavin Smith around for 4 days and watch him get belligerent and eat McDonalds.... that's "revolutionizing poker on television"?

Click to expand...

RIP Gavin. Died yesterday at 41.


[h=1]The Windmills of My Mind: Remembering Gavin Smith[/h]

This is an article I never expected to write.
Gavin Smith died last night.
Wait. Did I just type those words? Gavin Smith died? What the fuck?
I mean, it’s just not fair. This isn’t right. It can’t be. It’s a mistake. This must be some kind of cruel joke. Yeah, it’s a joke. Gavin can’t possibly be gone. He’s a survivor. An iron man. Nothing stops Gavin. He’s indestructible.
I’ve seen Gavin pull more than a few all-nighters and then come back and do it all over again. I’ve seen Gavin wreck brand new cars. I’ve been wild and crazy enough to get on the back of a motorcycle with Gavin wielding the handlebars. I’ve seen Gavin utterly penniless and still somehow show up at a $10,000 buy-in tournament gushing with a huge smile on his face acting like he was the luckiest man alive. I’ve seen Gavin slam down 20 cocktails in a single bar session. Numerous times. I’ve seen Gavin up and down and over and out — and yet I never envisioned this most sobering and shocking moment.
Gavin’s gone.
I haven’t read anything yet about the reported “cause” of death nor do I want to know. That’s because I can’t bear the pain of going there. Not yet. I don’t want to break down and be left in some darker and sadder place pondering questions to which there are likely no answers. They all want to know what happened, to know how he died. Well, I don’t care how he died. Right now, at this instant, all I want to do is cherish this moment and relish some memories of how he lived. All I care about is my dear friend — and he’s gone.
Gavin’s gone.

I’ve known Gavin Smith for more than 20 years — 22 years, to be exact. I deliberately write “known” instead of “knew” because I can’t put Gavin in the past tense. Not yet. Not now. That painful reality of life in the past-tense will take time. Lots of time. I chose to squeeze Gavin for one more selfish minute if I can. Let this reflection be that elusive embrace.
No poker player, past or present, provided me with more laughter. No friend made me angrier. No one drove me crazier. No colleague inspired move genuine love and compassion. No person was more infantile yet also so eloquently expressive. No man in the game I spent much of my life covering was such an open book.
Gavin’s flaws were many and they were glaring. Those flaws only made his virtues all the more spectacular. Gavin was everybody’s merry sidekick, a man-child, a motley court jester who spoke an unfiltered truth on all subjects. He sputtered whatever popped into his mind and often expressed sentiments everyone else in the room was thinking but who lacked the courage to speak. Gavin may have lacked proper decorum, at times, but he was brutally honest. Sometimes, way too honest.
Gavin was the toughest not on others, but on himself. He acknowledged his many failings. He did make earnest attempts to correct some of them. He cleaned up his act when it came time to do the right thing. Sometimes, he succeeded. Other times, he failed.
A few years ago, Gavin showed what he was capable of doing when he set his mind to a goal. He quit drinking for nearly a year, cleaned up his act, straightened his life out, and won custody of his two children. Gavin loved being a dad. He even put poker on hold to be with his kids.
Gavin is the most loyal and devoted person I’ve ever known in the game of poker — selflessly loyal to his friends, loyal to animals which he absolutely adored, and loyal to his children who shall someday remember their dad in ways that will surely be as painful as proud and pleasing.
HERE’S A LINK TO A GOFUNDME PAGE SET UP FOR GAVIN’S TWO SONS.
I first met Gavin at the 1997 World Poker Finals, at Foxwoods in Connecticut.
Portly, half-shaven, a terrible dresser — he was just some obnoxious Canadian kid no one had ever heard of who didn’t seem to let anything faze him at the poker table. We spent an entire week together playing nothing but single-table satellites. Gavin knocked me out of more than a few of those tables, and I busted him a few times, too. Win or lose, Gavin’s reaction was always the same. He’d smile and laugh. His cackle drove people crazy.
Months later, we hung out together at the World Poker Open, at the Gold Strike in Mississippi. Gavin watched me take a few particularly brutal beats and would laugh uproariously when I slammed the table with my fist. He drove me utterly insane. Man, was he obnoxious. What a loudmouthed son-of-a-bitch.
Well, one thing led to another. Resentment faded. Laugher won out. Arguments led to cocktails and the trading of deeply personal confidences and eventually friendship and love. Gradually, I came to realize that Gavin’s life-of-the-party persona masked some deeply concealed vulnerabilities. He wasn’t alone.
You know when you try to fall asleep at night and you can’t turn your brain off and thoughts and memories tumble — those are the windmills of the mind. And I can’t turn them off. Gavin is windmill of memories, some painful, all fond.
___________

Money never mattered shit to Gavin. Perhaps that’s a serious flaw in these times so obsessed with money and materialism. I don’t know. But being so selflessly carefree provided a sense of liberation most of the rest of us lack, but silently do seek.
I hung out with Gavin the night after he won a million dollars. I also hung out with Gavin when he wasn’t just flat-ass broke, but well over six-figures in debt to backers. He was the identical person in both circumstances. No one could tell the difference. Gavin might have $2 or $20,000 in his pocket and he was exactly the same person. Gavin just had a completely different mindset. He had his own barometer for success and happiness. Money wasn’t an end. It was merely a tool. He didn’t use the tools of his trade well, but if friendships were gold then Gavin was the federal reserve. He had the King Midas touch.
Gavin knew every bartender in every casino from Pompano to Poughkeepsie, and they all knew him by name and remembered precisely what he drank. I walked into at least 50 bars with Gavin where time and time again a tall greyhound with a double vodka pour was served and garnished on the counter by the time I had a chance to take a seat. The man was a living legend. He’s the only guy I ever met who could drink on credit. Perhaps that endearing generosity made us all his enablers, guilty contributors to his ultimate sad fate. Let such judgment be reserved until later. All I know is, Gavin was as brutally honest and devotedly loyal after 19 drinks or on the wagon. Vice might have been Gavin’s crutch. But vice was never Gavin’s illusion.
Gavin held my sick cat for hours like a baby at a poker table at Binion’s Horseshoe (true story). Once, Gavin showed up in upstate New York with no money and no credit card, expecting to play and stay for a week in an expensive hotel (yes, he got everything comped and left with cash in his pocket). Gavin and I once talked about writing a book together on (get ready to laugh your ass off) — “how to pick up girls.” I shit you not. That was the subject matter. Gavin was a master craftsman. He was the most unsexy man alive who somehow had a quality that endeared him to women, and everyone else.
His passions and his laughter were infectious. Whatever you were discussing before Gavin walked up, the subject was about to change one. He was a mover. A shaker. A force. A terror. An earthquake.
Here’s an article I wrote years ago about going out to a bar in Las Vegas with Gavin when neither one of us had any money.
READ: ANOTHER GAVIN SMITH STORY
Gavin was one of the very few people I’ve ever known who could and often would change an entire room….simply by walking into it.
Years ago, I was at a fancy steakhouse in Chicago. This was one of those crusty old-fashioned places ranked with lots of stars, with walnut-wood paneled walls, where everyone inside whispered, where they sipped martinis, where the establishment ruled and people like Gavin Smith usually bused tables if they were allowed inside, at all. Chris Bell was there with me as we waited in the bar for Gavin to arrive.
The bar was filled with blue-haired women, old bartenders sporting white beards like ship captains, accompanied by a pianist playing Tony Bennett songs. Neither Chris nor I knew what condition Gavin would show up in. But we feared the worst.
Gavin busted in the door and every head turned.
“Hey, you fuckers, I’m here!”
Over the next 15 minutes, I witnessed an absolute transformation that defies any logical explanation. Gavin was spewing out wild stories, going up to blue hairs on barstools offering to do shots together (some accepting his outlandish offer), introducing himself to everyone as a poker pro who somehow blew through a million dollars within three months. Any other loudmouth jerk would have been tossed out on the sidewalk as an insane crank.
To this day, I still can’t explain it. I can’t explain his appeal, I mean. Call it a gift. Gavin had those blue-hairs and bartenders eating out of his hand like mule deer at a petting zoo. He changed that room simply by walking into it. If he was selling aluminum siding, everyone in that bar would have left holding a signed contract, convinced they not only got a great deal but made a new friend.
As I said, I can’t explain. But I do know he possessed was a gift.
That’s the story I recall when thinking about Gavin in a bar. Or, anywhere.
READ: FACING THE FIRING SQUAD — GAVIN SMITH

I had the occasional honor and fleeting privilege of being present at the high point of the careers of many poker players — which is when they finally win a gold bracelet at the World Series of Poker. I’ve witnessed and presented on occasion about half (around 600) of all the gold bracelets awarded in history. I’ve seen them all — Brunson, Chan, Ungar, and the rest.
In the span of three decades I’ve attended the WSOP starting in 1985 up through 2016, no single moment gave me more joy than what happened on June 27th, 2010.
That day, Gavin won his first and only gold bracelet.
The specifics of which event he won or what hands he played or the amount of prize money isn’t what I recall, now. That money’s long gone. What I do remember was — all the love. The fucking love, man. The love everyone had for Gavin. What I remember was the spectator rail, stacked 10-deep. What I remember was not just Gavin’s tears flowing down the side of his face but the tears of everyone who was there that day. What I remember was my own tears flowing and of being so proud of the marvelous mess of a man who had made the long day’s journey into night and then had survived long enough to see a new sunrise.
READ MY OFFICIAL REPORT OF GAVIN’S VICTORY: WSOP NEWS — POKER’S COURT JESTER

The next day, presenting Gavin with his gold bracelet wasn’t at all about poker or prize money.
Gavin’s real victory was in standing upon a stage and peering out into a vast sea of beloved friends and colleagues and well-wishers, many of whom had vociferously battled him at the tables days earlier to prevent that moment from happening, but then taking absolute joy in watching the joy of another.
History loves the flawed hero, the victor who struggled most, the honest and the brave.
Gavin has been compared to Ken Stabler in football and John Daly in golf. All three were lovable lions who were the life of the party, but who struggled in the dark when party time was over. He was like sticking Robin Williams, Ozzie Osborne, and San Kinison into a giant blender, dousing the concoction with vodka and grapefruit juice, then hitting the puree button. There was only one Gavin. And, thank goodness for that. One Gavin is all we could handle. Barely so.
When Gavin accepted his gold bracelet upon that stage, they all cheered. Everyone was rooting for him. Indeed, Gavin had changed yet another room, this time a much bigger room, just by being in it.
Let’s not gloss over the obvious. Gavin was a man with serious problems and severe troubles.
Gavin fought many battles, not so much with what was on the outside, but what was hidden on the inside. If the highs were high, the lows were cruelly low — his restitution.
Those of us who knew him well were aware that he never shied away from those personal deficiencies, nor did he ever deny talking about them. But those flaws and failures also were composed into a rough uncut diamond of lasting friendship and loyalty. Gavin was a gemstone for those lucky enough to have ever heard him tell a funny joke, or share a cocktail, or been involved with him in a hand of poker.
Everyone who met Gavin probably remembers some kind of story. As so often was the case, Gavin often became the story, by being there. Just by being in the room.
How I wish to spin the windmill of my mind with Gavin, just one more time.

[ I always liked watching him play... would have loved to have partied with him, seemed like a great guy.... RIP Gavin ]

"I had the occasional honor and fleeting privilege of being present at the high point of the careers of many poker players — which is when they finally win a gold bracelet at the World Series of Poker. I’ve witnessed and presented on occasion about half (around 600) of all the gold bracelets awarded in history. I’ve seen them all — Brunson, Chan, Ungar, and the rest.
In the span of three decades I’ve attended the WSOP starting in 1985 up through 2016, no single moment gave me more joy than what happened on June 27th, 2010.
That day, Gavin won his first and only gold bracelet.
The specifics of which event he won or what hands he played or the amount of prize money isn’t what I recall, now. That money’s long gone. What I do remember was — all the love. The fucking love, man. The love everyone had for Gavin. What I remember was the spectator rail, stacked 10-deep. What I remember was not just Gavin’s tears flowing down the side of his face but the tears of everyone who was there that day. What I remember was my own tears flowing and of being so proud of the marvelous mess of a man who had made the long day’s journey into night and then had survived long enough to see a new sunrise."

Heard he drank everyday and had heart/liver issues. They set up a gofundme for his kids and it is at 50k already.

He was 50 fwiw

poker players are GREAT role models.

festeringZit said:

Releases tomorrow:

https://www.amazon.com/Pulling Trigger Autobiography Poker Elezra/dp/1880685604/ref=zg_bsnr_4414_10

Click to expand...

Quite the scandal going on at TwoPlusTwo Publishing. They started a thread where Eli would answer questions from "fans" to promote the book, and within a day or two
a bunch of people came forward with documentation that Eli had scammed them out of large amounts of money. Eventually they had to shut that thread down, and
Eli has gone into hiding - but supposedly he's supposed to make some statement in the forums soon.

What a scumbag.

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29/news-views-gossip/new-elezra-book-thread-1734290/

They need a 24/7 poker channel.......