You
can find poker on a lot of TV channels these days,
but the games you see have taken place long before
they hit the air.
Fox Sports Net aims to change that with what it's
billing as the first live telecast of a Texas Holdem
poker tournament, scheduled for Wednesday, July 14.
"There's no doubt that poker has gained tremendous
momentum as a television product in the last year,"
FSN's head of production and programming, George
Greenberg, tells The Hollywood Reporter. "Our
hope with this live telecast is to capture the
high-stakes drama and tension every poker player
experiences as it occurs."
"The American Poker Championship" will feature the
final table of a three-day no-limit Texas holdem
tournament at the Turning Stone Resort and Casino in
Oneida, N.Y. The "live" billing isn't entirely
accurate; FSN will air the four-hour broadcast on a
five-minute delay to allay fears that a player might
use the TV coverage to cheat.
Rather than the hole-card cameras used on other
poker shows, such as the Travel Channel's "World
Poker Tour" and Bravo's "Celebrity Poker Showdown,"
Fox Sports says it will employ a computerized card
reader for the live show. The cable network says the
system will allow for "instantaneous onscreen card
identification."
