Poker After Dark has no doubt been one of the most successful poker television shows in history.  The hour-long NBC show, which first made its debut on January of 2007, has already lasted 5 seasons and doesn’t look to slow down any time soon.  Poker After Dark has started a new season which will feature 12 episodes.

The 12 brand new episodes which comprise season 6 will center on high stakes cash games between some of the best poker players in the world.  Phil Ivey, Eli Elezra, Tom “durrrr” Dwan, Patrik Antonius, Howard Lederer, and llari “Zigmund” Sahamies will all participate in the new season of Poker After Dark.

Besides being accepted by invitation, players also needed to buy into the show with $100,000; the blinds will be set at $200/$400.  What’s interesting is that the seemingly low blinds (for the caliber of players involved) will be moving up as the show advances with the blinds expected to triple towards the end.  This means that the blinds will eventually reach $600/$1,200 which is more accustomed to what many of the show’s contestants are used to playing for.

All of the players in season 6 of Poker After Dark have been involved with other poker TV shows in the past with the exception of llari “Zigmund” Sahamies.  Sahamies has made a name for himself through his online exploits and has come into even bigger fame recently when he made the final table of the WSOP Main Event.

For those wondering when they’ll get to see Sahamies, as well as the other players on Poker After Dark, episodes will air every night on NBC at 2:05 am.  The special Director’s Cut will air every Saturday after Saturday Night Live while people can also catch episodes by going to nbcsports.com as well.

NBC’s Face the Ace will be making another run at the TV cycle with six episodes between now and January 2. This is good for those of you that haven’t been able to find enough poker on television…

Blurring the lines between reality program and standard poker show, FTA’s initial run was a bit marred by low ratings, boring play and subpar announcing.

The show’s producer, Mori Eskandani, has stated that the show isn’t going to be changing in a big way, but some tweaks will occur. Look for more involvement from the contestant’s family (oh man), and less of the guy from the Sopranos not really knowing much about poker.

I think it’s cool to see an attempt at rethinking the standard poker programming that is pretty omnipresent on the TV dial lately, but FTA misses the mark for me. I think it’s a combination of people not playing great poker and pros playing with house money. There are no real stakes, which is different from every other poker program – but in a bad way.

For those of you still interested, or just home on Saturday nights, here is the lineup:

(All of these are Saturdays)

September 12
October 31 (spooky!)
November 14
December 12
January 2

Enjoy!