Poker Night Live was the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

's first live

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poker Poker is a family of comparing card games in which players wager over which hand is best according to that specific game's rules. It is played worldwide, however in some places the rules may vary. While the earliest known form of the game w ...

show, broadcast between 2005 and 2007 on Pokerzone, usually between 9pm and 1am. Versions of it have been broadcast worldwide. The show, in its live form, finished in May 2007, although repeats of past episodes were still broadcast until the closure of the Pokerzone channel the following year.

Show Features

The show featured coverage of online poker cash games, single table "sit and go" tournaments, and multi-table tournaments. The games featured are from the

Prima Poker Microgaming is a privately held gambling software company based in the Isle of Man. The company first developed online casino software in 1994. Overview In May 2009, Microgaming's progressive slot Mega Moolah paid out $6,374,434, the largest ...

network of sites, and are broadcast with a short delay, with all players' cards visible. The presenters also discuss viewers' emails and text messages on poker issues. A regular feature from February, 2006 was the "Beat The Presenter" tournament, in which one of the presenters plays a single table tournament while the programme is being broadcast, and then analyses their play along with their co-presenter after it is completed. In 2006, Poker Night Live offered its regular online players the chance to win places in a special PokerBowl show. The six qualifiers visited the PokerZone studio to play in a "live" tournament. The show was broadcast in September 2006 with Ken "Snappit" Hawkins beating Andrew "Gilberto" Parkhouse heads up.

Presenters & Guests

Presenters

Throughout its run, the show featured a number of different presenters, some of them expert players and others relatively new to the game. Usually the show was presented by one of the female hosts alongside one of the poker experts. When the show started, the hosts knew little about poker, however, their knowledge improved as the show went on. Hosts on the UK version of Poker Night Live included: *

Lynsey Horn Lynsey Hipgrave (née Horn; born 6 September 1979) is an England, English television, radio presenter and journalist, currently working for BT Sport. Broadcasting career Radio Hipgrave's initial break came on Manchester radio station Galaxy Manches ...

* Michelle "The Night Nurse" Orpe *

Kara Scott Kara Scott is a Canadian British TV personality, journalist and poker player. Born in northern Alberta, Canada, Scott moved to the United Kingdom in 1999 and worked in the UK media until 2009 when she moved to California. Having trained in Mu ...

The poker experts on the UK version included: * Mark Banin * Caspar Berry * James Browning * John Clark * Malcolm "The Rock" Harwood *

Alex Hyndman Alex Hyndman (also known as Alexandra Hill) is an English broadcast journalist. Early life Hyndman was born in Grantham but grew up in Australia where she was educated at St Aloysius College, Adelaide. She moved back to the UK and attended Ki ...

* Tony "tikay" Kendall * Barry "The Bully" Martin * "Dr Tom" Sambrook * Nick Wealthall * Greg "Axxeman" Winters * Michelle "Night Nurse" Orpe

Special Guests

Guests in the

commentary Commentary or commentaries may refer to: Publications * ''Commentary'' (magazine), a U.S. public affairs journal, founded in 1945 and formerly published by the American Jewish Committee * Caesar's Commentaries (disambiguation), a number of works ...

box have included: * Kevin O'Connell * Victoria Smirnoff *

Nic Szeremeta Nic Szeremeta (1943 - 25 January 2021) was a poker player of English and Polish descent, the publisher of ''Poker Europa'' magazine, and creator of the ''Late Night Poker'' television series (and commentator with Jesse May during its first thr ...

Antonio Esfandiari Antonio "The Magician" Esfandiari ( fa, امیر اسفندیاری; born December 8, 1978 as Amir Esfandiary), is a professional poker player and former professional magician, known for his elaborate chip tricks. Esfandiari was the face of th ...

Phil Laak Philip Courtney Laak (born September 8, 1972) is an Irish–American professional poker player and a poker commentator, now residing in Los Angeles, California. Laak holds a World Poker Tour (WPT) title, a World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet, a ...

The Hendon Mob The Hendon Mob are a group of four professional poker players from London, England: Joe Beevers, Barny Boatman, Ross Boatman, and Ram Vaswani. The name of the group was first publicised by the ''Evening Standard'' newspaper in September 2000. J ...

Dave Ulliott David A. Ulliott (also known as Devilfish)(1 April 1954 – 6 April 2015), was an English professional gambler and poker player. Formerly, Ulliott was a minor figure in the Hull underworld, but went on to become a World Series of Poker bracele ...

Johnny Chan Johnny Chan (;He has another Chinese name "Chen Qiangni" () which is also commonly used by Chinese-language media. It is a transliteration of "Johnny Chan" (as "Chen" for "Chan", "Qiangni" for "Johnny") rather than his Chinese birth name. born ...

* Simon "Aces" Trumper *

Steve Davis Steve Davis (born 22 August 1957) is an English retired professional snooker player who is currently a Sports commentator, commentator, musician, DJ, and author. He is best known for dominating professional snooker during the 1980s, when he rea ...

systemsbets

Celebrity Players

Several celebrities have been known to play on the TV broadcast tables, including: * Nick Bateman (Former '' Big Brother'' contestant) * Roberto Conte (Former '' Big Brother'' contestant) *

Charles Ingram Charles William Ingram (born 6 August 1963) is an English novelist and former British Army major who gained notoriety for his appearance on the ITV television game show ''Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?''. In episodes recorded in September 200 ...

(''

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? ''Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?'' (often informally called ''Millionaire'') is an international television game show franchise of British origin, created by David Briggs, Mike Whitehill and Steven Knight. In its format, currently owned and ...

'' million winner, convicted of deception) *

Ewen Macintosh Ewen Douglas MacIntosh (born 25 December 1973) is a British actor and comedian known for his role as Keith Bishop in ''The Office'' (2001–2003). Early life MacIntosh was born in Merionethshire. He was educated at Repton School in Derbyshire, ...

(Actor) * Grub Smith (TV presenter) * Phil Taylor (

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champion)

Canadian version

In February 2006, a Canadian version was created for Casino and Gaming Television (now called

GameTV GameTV is a Canadian English language specialty channel owned by Anthem Sports & Entertainment. It currently broadcasts a mixture of game shows, reality competition series, and films. The channel was first launched in 2005 under the ownership of ...

). The Canadian version ran for two hours, instead of the four-hour run-time of the UK show. The format was similar with more focus on Sit and Go tournaments and No Limit Cash tables featuring Canadian players. The show aired live Wednesday to Sunday at 11:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. EST. Repeated episodes were aired Monday and Tuesday at 11:00 p.m. and 7 days a week from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. The show was cancelled in December 2006 when CGTV was rebranded to

. Presenters on the Canadian version have included: * Tina Teggart (Host) * John "Johnny T" Tokatlidis (Host/Expert) * Devin "Downtown Devo Brown" Armstrong (Expert) * Lou Gazzola (Expert) * Audrey Audet (Expert) * Antonio "The Magician" Esfandiari (Celebrity Expert) * Gail Ordogh (Host)

External links

Official site
Television shows about poker Poker in Europe