Poker Mom

This week marked the return of Poker After Dark to the NBC lineup.  Although the majority of this season of Poker After Dark will feature the typical six-player tournament lineup, the inaugural week is being played in a cash game format.  With a $100 per person ante and blinds set at $200/$400, six players bought in for a minimum of $100,000.

Fans of NBC’s Heads-up Poker Championship were looking forward to the clash between Tom Dwan (who has a striking resemblance to Eddie Munster) and Phil Hellmuth and as of yet, the words between the two have been pretty benign.  In a loving move, the two even shared sushi.  Yes, that’s right; Hellmuth and Dwan shared a plate of sushi. 

In the Friday morning episode, Hellmuth felted David “Viffer” Peat when he flopped a set of fours to Viffer’s pair of Queens with an Ace-kicker.  At this point, Hellmuth had already been felted once so it was definitely a boost to his ego.  Not that Hellmuth needs a boost, but his spirit quickly turned jovial after the $230k+ pot.

Viffer bought back in for $160k (or thereabouts) and a few hands later woke up with pocket aces.  He put in a modest raise and the table folded around to Allen Cunningham who had pocket Kings.  Talk about a cold deck!  A few raises later, Viffer was all-in and Cunningham quickly called.  Viffer offered to run it twice so two full boards later, Viffer took down the more than $300k pot as Cunningham could not catch a King.

The play isn’t over but it is nice to watch a cash game again.  Sure, I love the tourney format but in the absence of my ultimate favorite – High Stakes Poker – I love to see the cash game.  This is a typical high-stakes cash game with straddles, double straddles, insurance and even the seven-deuce bounty.  Rumors are abound that season five of High Stakes Poker is in the works but nothing concrete has been announced.

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