"Poker After Dark" invites questions about chickens and eggs: Did the show create the American poker craze, or did pokermania create the show? Filling the insomniac hours after NBC's languishing late-night line-up, "Poker After Dark" now is the drug-of-choice for let-the-cards-fly fanatics all over North America. For viewers immune to the thrilling contagion of Texas Hold "˜Em, "Poker After Dark" certainly must seem like snooze-fest supreme, because the show's drama and suspense live and flourish in the nuances, and they develop behind the hardest of hardcore poker faces. Unless the viewer knows the game, game theory, the identities and playing styles of the super-stars at the table, and the razor-thin line between skill and luck, "Poker After Dark" looks like nothing but six grizzled characters brooding over scraps of paper. For anyone with a working knowledge of "the flop," "the river," and "all-in," the subtle-but-intense drama is absolutely compelling, and "Poker After Dark" totally dominates its time-slot. In the show's fourth season, once it clearly had established a devoted following among poker addicts, "Poker After Dark's" producers began diversifying the program's format and content, pitting table players against online gamers, showing no-limit cash games, and scheduling head-to-head playoffs between seasoned professionals and dedicated amateurs. Texas Hold "˜Em, however, still has greatest hold on viewers' attention.

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