Kane Kalas (born May 11, 1989) is an American investor, poker player, recording artist and broadcaster.

Early life

Kane Kalas was born on May 11, 1989, and was raised in

Media, Pennsylvania Media is a borough in and the county seat of Delaware County, Pennsylvania. It is located about west of Philadelphia, the sixth most populous city in the nation with 1.6 million residents as 2020. It is part of the Delaware Valley metropolita ...

. He is the son of the

Philadelphia Phillies The Philadelphia Phillies are an American professional baseball team based in Philadelphia. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the National League (NL) National League East, East division. Since 2004, the team's home sta ...

play-by-play commentator and

Baseball Hall of Fame The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is a history museum and hall of fame in Cooperstown, New York, operated by private interests. It serves as the central point of the history of baseball in the United States and displays baseball-r ...

member

Harry Kalas Harold Norbert Kalas (March 26, 1936 – April 13, 2009) was an American sportscaster, best known for his Ford C. Frick Award-winning role as lead play-by-play announcer for Major League Baseball's Philadelphia Phillies, a position he held fr ...

and brother of

Todd Kalas Todd Harry Kalas (born December 31, 1965) is an American sportscaster, employed since 2017 as a television play-by-play announcer for Houston Astros baseball. Education Kalas graduated from Syracuse University's S. I. Newhouse School of Publi ...

, the play-by-play commentator for the

Houston Astros The Houston Astros are an American professional baseball team based in Houston, Texas. The Astros compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West division, having moved to the division in 2013 after ...

. Kalas attended

University of Miami The University of Miami (UM, UMiami, Miami, U of M, and The U) is a private research university in Coral Gables, Florida. , the university enrolled 19,096 students in 12 colleges and schools across nearly 350 academic majors and programs, incl ...

Music career

Kalas is known for performing "

The Star-Spangled Banner "The Star-Spangled Banner" is the national anthem of the United States. The lyrics come from the "Defence of Fort M'Henry", a poem written on September 14, 1814, by 35-year-old lawyer and amateur poet Francis Scott Key after witnessing the b ...

", "

God Bless America "God Bless America" is an American patriotic song written by Irving Berlin during World War I in 1918 and revised by him in the run up to World War II in 1938. The later version was notably recorded by Kate Smith, becoming her signature s ...

", and "

Take Me Out to the Ball Game "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" is a 1908 Tin Pan Alley song by Jack Norworth and Albert Von Tilzer which has become the unofficial anthem of North American baseball, although neither of its authors had attended a game prior to writing the song ...

" at

Citizens Bank Park Citizens Bank Park is a baseball stadium located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the city's South Philadelphia Sports Complex. It is the home playing field of the Philadelphia Phillies, the city's Major League Baseball (MLB) franchise. The stad ...

. It is a

tradition for Kalas to perform the national anthem at each year’s home opener and when the Phillies are in the playoffs. In 2008, Kalas performed "America, the Dream Goes On" at

Independence Hall Independence Hall is a historic civic building in Philadelphia, where both the United States Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution were debated and adopted by America's Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Fa ...

in Philadelphia. In 2009, Kalas sang "

America the Beautiful "America the Beautiful" is a patriotic American song. Its lyrics were written by Katharine Lee Bates and its music was composed by church organist and choirmaster Samuel A. Ward at Grace Episcopal Church in Newark, New Jersey. The two neve ...

" at the Media Memorial Day parade. In 2022 he performed at the Media Eagles Pep Rally celebrating the

Philadelphia Eagles The Philadelphia Eagles are a professional American football team based in Philadelphia. The Eagles compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East division. The team plays ...

Superbowl appearance that year. He has performed in the professional operas ''

Fidelio ''Fidelio'' (; ), originally titled ' (''Leonore, or The Triumph of Marital Love''), Op. 72, is Ludwig van Beethoven's only opera. The German libretto was originally prepared by Joseph Sonnleithner from the French of Jean-Nicolas Bouilly, with ...

'' and ''Agostino and the Puchinni Clarinet''. In 2023, Kalas released an album titled ''High Hopes'', dedicated to his father, Harry Kalas, and the city of Philadelphia. The cover album includes original compositions of 18 classic

American Standards American Standards is an American hardcore punk band from Phoenix, Arizona, formed in 2011. The band consists of members Brandon Kellum (vocals), Corey Skowronski (lead guitar), Steven Mandell (bass), and Mitch Hosier (drums). Their musical sty ...

Poker career

Kalas starting playing online poker professionally under the handle "NASCAR_1949" during his freshman year of college in 2008. Between then and Poker Black Friday, Kalas competed in the largest cash games that have ever run online. He was a regular in Full Tilt Poker's Rail Heaven $500/$1000 No-limit Hold 'em games. During this time, Kalas made poker training videos for Pokernews Strategy, which later changed its name to Poker Phenoms. Kalas' debut in televised poker occurred on the

Fox Sports Network Fox Sports Networks (FSN), formerly known as Fox Sports Net, was the collective name for a group of regional sports channels in the United States. Formed in 1996 by News Corporation, the networks were acquired by The Walt Disney Company on Mar ...

in September 2014, when he placed second in the WPT Borgata Poker Open for a total prize of over $500,000. Kalas was featured in

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

's coverage of the 2015 World Series of Poker Main Event. Kalas is the winner of the biggest pot in televised poker history. In May 2018, he won a $2,178,770 pot in the Triton Cash Game from the Triton Super High Roller series held in Montenegro. In 2019, Upswing Poker released a Six-plus hold'em training course featuring Kalas as the instructor.

Broadcasting

Kalas is a regular broadcaster of the World Series of Poker for PokerGo, PokerCentral, and

CBS All Access Paramount+ is an American Video on demand#Subscription models, subscription video on-demand service owned by Paramount Global. The service's content is drawn primarily from the libraries of CBS Media Ventures (including CBS Studios), Paramount Me ...

. He has called play-by-play for a number of

World Poker Tour The World Poker Tour (WPT) is an internationally televised gaming and entertainment brand. Since 2002, the World Poker Tour has operated a series of international poker tournaments and associated television series broadcasting playdown and the fi ...

events including PartyPoker's WPT Montreal, WPT Thunder Valley, WPT Deepstacks Parx, and WPT Borgata. He called play-by-play for the first broadcast of the Triton Super High Roller Series in Montenegro in May, 2018. When the Patrick Antonius Poker Challenge tournament and cash game series debuted in 2019, in Tallinn, Estonia, Kalas commentated the event. Kalas also commentated the “High Stakes Feud” grudge match between

Daniel Negreanu Daniel Negreanu (; born July 26, 1974) is a Canadian professional poker player who has won six World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelets and two World Poker Tour (WPT) championship titles. In 2014, independent poker ranking service Global Poker Ind ...

and

Doug Polk Douglas K. Polk (born December 16, 1988) is an American professional poker player. Polk played under the alias WCGRider, specializing in heads-up No Limit hold'em (HUNL). Early life Polk was born in Pasadena, California, and has loved strategy ...

in 2020. Kalas has also broadcast events for the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open, Live at the Bike, and the Borgata Poker Open.

Discography

Studio albums

* ''High Hopes'' (2023)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kalas, Kane 1989 births Living people American poker players 21st-century American singers 21st-century American male singers University of Miami alumni