This week on Poker After Dark, new episodes will premiere as Commentator's Week commences on Tuesday at 2:05 a.m. on NBC. Players who spend a lot of time behind the scenes will take the spotlight and compete for the $120,000 winner-take-all first-place prize.
The following are the featured players on Commentator's Week with bios provided by CardPlayer.com's player database:
Ali Nejad
Oliver Nejad, better known as “Ali,” was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay area. He started playing poker more than a decade ago and has spent time around the sport as a player, dealer, and televised poker host. Nejad studied broadcasting at Cal-Berkeley, commentates for the show Poker After Dark, and co-hosts the annual NBC Heads-Up Poker Championship.
Howard Lederer
Nowadays, Howard Lederer is president of Full Tilt Poker and competes with the best of the best in the poker world every day, but he credits his competitive edge to his early card-playing experiences with his siblings.
At the age of 18, he pursued his passion for chess and moved to New York to play professionally. He discovered a new passion in poker and began playing, and went broke most of the time until he began gaining experience at the famous Mayfair Club. This was home to professionals such as Dan Harrington and Erik Seidel. Lederer improved his game and moved to Las Vegas in 1993.
In 2002, he shifted his focus from cash games to tournaments. “The Professor” has two World Series of Poker bracelets in the 2000 $5,000 Omaha eight-or-better and the 2001 $5,000 deuce-to-seven draw events. He also won the 2002 World Poker Tour Championship at Foxwoods, is the 2003 WPT PartyPoker Million champion, and won three Five-Star World Poker Classic events.
Phil Gordon
Phil Gordon grew up in Stone Mountain, Georgia. He graduated from college at the age of 20 and was working for the government at an artificial-intelligence company at 21. He then went to work for NETSYS Technologies, which was sold to Cisco Systems for $95 million.
A World Series of Poker bracelet has thus far eluded him. However, he has made several WSOP final tables, including a fourth-place finish in the 2001 main event, third in an Omaha eight-or-better event, and third in the 2005 $1,500 no-limit hold’em shootout event. He won a World Poker Tour title in the 2004 Bay 101 Shooting Star tournament by knocking two players out in one hand.
He represents Team Full Tilt. Poker literature is also a facet of Gordon’s career. He has written Poker: The Real Deal, Phil Gordon’s Little Green Book: Lessons and Teaching in No-limit Texas Hold’em, and Phil Gordon’s Little Blue Book: More Lessons and Hand Analysis in No-limit Hold’em.
Robert Williamson III
This former real estate developer has taken his skills from the property market and brought them into the poker world and found great results. Born in and currently residing in
Dallas, Texas
, Williamson is known for his aggressive and crazy style of play.
A lover of pot-limit Omaha, it should surprise no one that Williamson biggest victory came in the 2002 World Series of Poker when he won his first bracelet in that game.
Chad Brown
Chad Brown grew up playing poker in Italian cafés in the Bronx. In 1990, he moved to Los Angeles to become a Hollywood actor. He had some success in acting, but sharpened his talent at the poker tables to supplement his income. He has given up his acting career to focus on poker and has found similar fame and fortune on the tournament circuit.
Brown’s biggest accomplishments have come in seven-card stud tournaments. He won the events at the Five-Diamond World Poker Classic and L.A. Poker Classic and finished second in a WSOP stud event. Proving that he is talented in more than one variation of the game, Brown has had much success in no-limit hold'em tournaments, as well. He made back-to-back final tables in WSOP Tournament Circuit events in 2005 in no-limit hold’em. In 2007, he finished as the runner-up in the NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship.
Mark Gregorich
Having played poker professionally since 1995 in Las Vegas, Mark Gregorich has become known has a dangerous player and regarded as one of the top Omaha eight-or-better players in the world. Sought out by the “Grandfather of Poker,” Doyle Brunson, Gregorich contributed to a section featured in Super System II. He is also columnist for Card Player.
Gregorich is considered primarily a cash-game player, but he has pages worth of major tournament cashes. At the 2003 World Series of Poker, Gregorich came in second to Carlos Mortensen in the $5,000 limit hold’em event. He also made it deep in the 2007 WSOP $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event, proving his skill in numerous variations of the game. Gregorich nearly missed the final table and finished in 11th place for more than $117,000.
This week’s theme will continue airing in the same timeslot through Saturday. On Sunday, a special “Director’s Cut” episode recaps the week’s action at 1 a.m. More Poker on TV listings can be found on CardPlayer.com.
