Jeff Haney on how the Ultimate Poker Challenge is betting it can sit at the table with the big boys

Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2006 | 7:34 a.m.

The Ultimate Poker Challenge, nestled in the No. 3 position in the TV poker arena behind a pair of dominant rivals, aims to make a splash with its third full season beginning Saturday at Binion's.

While it might not have the glamour of the World Series of Poker or the World Poker Tour, the Ultimate Poker Challenge has planned an ambitious schedule of 156 shows in the next year capped by the organization's signature event, a $10,000 buy in, no-limit Texas hold 'em tournament.

Only 26 of those shows will take place in the Ultimate Poker Challenge's elite "championship series," with the remainder featuring small buy in tournaments that afford amateur players perhaps their best opportunity to play poker on national television.

"Our goal is to get 1,092 new players on TV," said challenge spokesman Jeff Todd, referring to the series' seven-player final tables.

The Ultimate Poker Challenge will sponsor $340 buy in tournaments each Saturday and Sunday and a $660 tournament each Monday at Binion's through Dec. 11, with more to be announced. The final tables will air four to six weeks later on the syndicated show, Todd said.

The Ultimate Poker Challenge TV show is available to 82.3 percent of the nation, according to Todd, including WGN (Cox cable channel 16) in Las Vegas. That equates to 90 million households, which is roughly equivalent to the reach of ESPN (World Series of Poker) and a little more than the Travel Channel (World Poker Tour).

Whereas the smaller Ultimate Poker Challenge tournaments are geared toward aspiring poker players hoping to make their names, the circuit's championship series attracts top-level professionals. Previous tournaments have featured well-known pros such as Andy Bloch, Allen Cunningham, Chris Ferguson, Ted Forrest and Gavin Smith.

(Todd calls an abbreviated set of shows now airing "a kind of preseason" to the third full season of tournaments. Those episodes were filmed down Fremont Street from Binion's at the Plaza, the previous home of Ultimate Poker.)

Since its inception, the Ultimate Poker Challenge has drawn positive reviews from professional poker players, who like the structure of the circuit's tournaments. Players start with a large amount of chips relative to the antes and "blinds," or forced bets, and the size of the blinds increases slowly throughout the tournament, which allows for plenty of strategic maneuvering.

"It doesn't turn into an all-in free-for-all," Todd said.

The major Ultimate Poker Challenge events tend to attract fields heavy with professional players. Last year's $10,000 buy in championship event drew only 55 players, but 47 of them were established pros, Todd said. That fosters an elite brand of poker, as the pros work to outthink each other rather than beating up on overmatched Internet qualifiers and other amateurs.

Two companion programs join the lineup for the new season. "Cash Poker: The Big Game" is a scaled-down version of GSN's hit "High Stakes Poker," which depicts a no-limit cash game. "Cash Poker" will portray a no-limit hold 'em game with a $25,000 minimum buy in and a cast of amateur players mixed in with the big-name pros. The first filming is scheduled for Dec. 16 at Binion's.

"Poker Parlor," a strategy talk show in the vein of Fox Sports Net's "Learn from the Pros," was filmed in a two-week shoot in Burbank, Calif., that will yield 26 episodes, Todd said.

A preview of an episode that featured host Oliver Nejad with Forrest, Kenna James and omnipresent Daniel Negreanu looked promising. Negreanu analyzed a key hand he played against Greg Raymer in the National Heads-Up Poker Championship at Caesars Palace, and revealed that he prepared for the match against Raymer by watching old tapes of the World Series of Poker the night before. In a lighter moment, Negreanu dissected the old Las Vegas superstition about $50 bills bringing bad luck.

"These pros remember, hand after hand after hand, exactly what was going on," Todd said. "It's amazing. What we're trying to do is explain exactly what was going on in their minds, why they made the moves they made."