NBC Welcomes Back GabeKaplan Returns as Analyst for National Heads-Up Poker Championship |
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Gabe Kaplan's phone has been ringing off the hook the past few weeks.
It seems all the old poker salts know NBC tagged the actor and long-time poker player as the poker analyist for the National Heads-Up Poker Championship, and they think Kaplan could somehow put a good word in and land them one of the 64 available spots.
Even his enemies are calling him. Some have probably even slipped and called him "Mr. Kotter."
"I've been playing tournament poker for 30 years. There are guys who I'm friendly with and there are guys who I'm not so friendly with. They're all calling me," says Kaplan. "I can't get them into the tournament. I can't even get myself into the tournament."
Kaplan asked if he could play this year and then slide behind the microphone after one of the hardened pros knocked him out in one of the first rounds, but NBC said no way.
Kaplan says the NBC executives told him it would be a conflict of interest, but it may be because there is a chance Kaplan would never make it to the broadcast table.
Kaplan has been a regular at the World Series of Poker almost since its inception. His lifetime tournament poker winnings total more than $600,000. In 2005, he finished second in the WSOP $5,000 buy-in limit event and won $222,515. The world watched him finish third at a World Poker Tour event at The Mirage in 2004 where he won $256,519.
So instead of competing for the $500,000 top prize, Kaplan will once again be watching and talking about the poker action. Consequently, his name will not be written in one of the 64 slots that will make up the National Heads-Up Poker Championship's brackets.
Phil Hellmuth will try to repeat as the heads-up championship, but he'll have to move through a field that includes some of the toughest pros out there. Daniel Negreanu, Phil Ivey, Howard Lederer, Jennifer Harman, Annie Duke, Ferguson and Barry Greenstein all have confirmed they'll be there.
The series will be taped March 4, 5, and 6, at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas and will be shown six Sundays in a row on NBC starting April 16.
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