Column: Poker After Dark PLO Week Is Great for the Game

Last week's Poker After Dark featured a $100,000 buy-in Pot Limit Omaha cash game with six of the world's best players. This experiment turned out to be a great success, as the combination of an action-packed game with an amazing line-up made for excellent television.

Last Week's Players Photo Source: Poker After Dark

Why PLO is Great for TV and Poker

Last week on Poker After Dark, players took part in a Pot Limit Omaha (PLO) cash game. PLO is a high-action game where the pots can be huge - and that is exactly what casual poker players are interested in seeing.

Six aggressive world-class players sitting down with $100,000 to play a high-variance game is sure to get some No Limit Hold'em players to try out PLO.  Increased interest in learning new poker games is beneficial to both live and online games everywhere.

On top of all of that, this week's table was full of excellent players, and even seasoned PLO players could learn a great deal from watching.  It is extremely interesting to watch when these top professionals choose to stray from what is typically considered "standard" strategy.

The fact that PLO on Poker After Dark managed to appeal to novices, players who only play No Limit Hold'em, and PLO players alike is a great accomplishment for their broadcast.  If these types of broadcasts receive the attention they are due, they can help broaden the poker world.

An Outstanding Line-up

Having to sit at last week's table would cause most professional players to wet their pants. The line-up was:

• Phil Ivey, who specializes in being one of the best players in the world at every form of poker known to man. He's the proud owner of 8 World Series of Poker bracelets, and it is rumoured he can read minds.
• Tom Dwan, better known by his internet handle "durrrr". Dwan is one of the most aggressive and entertaining cash game specialists anywhere.
• Phil Galfond, known as "OMGClayAiken" online. Galfond is a high stakes cash game specialist and won a World Series of Poker bracelet in 2008 by taking down a PLO event.
• Patrik Antonius, a feared all-around player with a European Poker Tour title to his name.
• Brandon Adams, a Harvard professor and high-stakes regular.
• Brian Hastings, one of the all-time biggest winners online. Hastings is the man who put an end to Isildur1's remarkable 2009 heater.

Very few poker players would ever consider sitting down at this table, but luckily these six don't have the words "game selection" in their vocabularies.

This line-up was excellent to get people watching PLO. Many casual players flipping through the channels will stop and watch if they see the likes of Phil Ivey or Tom Dwan at a table.  This whole week wouldn't have worked nearly as well if the table was full of uninteresting, tight players.

A Wild Hand

One great example of the types of hands that make PLO a perfect game for television is the final hand from last week. There's no need for a spoiler alert, as I won't be revealing the action or results. However, here's what each player held on a flop:

Galfond: , for a pair of 6's with the nut flush draw
Antonius: for two pair, 6's and 2's, with a double-gutter straight draw
Ivey: for a wrap with a king-high flush draw
Hastings: for a pair of 8's and a ten-high flush draw

I bet you won't see anything quite like that in a No Limit Hold'em game.

You can imagine the type of action that followed, but if you don't have a great imagination I would highly recommend you check out the episode yourself.

Conclusion

Overall, there's one very simple quality of this format that made these shows interesting; it's new.  Sometimes viewers are going to want a break from 6-max Sit & Go's, and Poker After Dark acknowledged that when they introduced cash games to their program.  When those episodes worked out, the show decided to go a step further and introduce PLO to the mix.  We should all be glad they did, as these episodes were some of the most interesting ones they've ever aired.