Fans of the PokerStars-sponsored “Big Game,” a cash game series that airs late nights on Fox, will be in for a change when its second season begins airing in June or July. Chris Rose, who hosted Season 1 alongside Joe Stapleton, will focus on baseball duties for Fox. In his stead will be longtime poker media personality Scott Huff.
Huff, who co-hosted “Poker2Nite” alongside UB.com front man Joe Sebok, will now reunite with his PokerRoad partner. The contracts for Season 2 of the “Big Game” have not yet been signed and nothing official has been released from Fox or PokerStars in terms of when the show will air, although a June or July start date appears to be likely.
In the meantime, Rose will have his hands full with the 2011 Major League Baseball season, which began on Thursday. He’s also the host of the PokerStars “Million Dollar Challenge,” which airs on Fox and pits online qualifiers against celebrities, poker pros, and the star of the show, Daniel Negreanu, in a series of heads-up matches. The grand prize is a million bucks and Rose is expected to continue his “Million Dollar Challenge” hosting duties.
On TwoPlusTwo, one poster was looking forward to the change from Rose to Huff, the latter of whom has a cult following of sorts: “For those of you who don’t know who Huff is, You are in for a real treat! This guy is an amazing talent. With him and Stapes together, you are looking at the best 1-2 punch in poker broadcasting. My favorite poker show just got that much better!”
Another member of the community echoed the same sentiments: “Great news! Huff will play this part perfectly and Stapleton is already my favorite poker commentator. Can’t wait for the new season.”
“Poker2Nite” was last seen on Versus last May. UB.com pro Maria Ho was the show’s final guest along with Paul Leggett, who was Tokwiro’s COO at the time. Leggett commented on a security encryption flaw that plagued the CEREUS Network, telling “Poker2Nite” viewers, “We do have additional layers of security that would help us identify if someone was able to exploit something like this.” Season 1 of “Poker2Nite” aired on Fox Sports Net before the show hopped over to Versus for Season 2.
The most recent new “Big Game” week aired in mid-December and featured Loose Cannon David Fishman. PokerStars pro Vanessa Rousso went busto on its opening episode after running two pair into DoylesRoom pro Amit Makhija’s set. The river was run four times, but Makhija’s hand held each time for an $87,000 pot. Rousso did not rebuy and promptly departed the “Big Game” set in Los Angeles.
Although Rose and Stapleton appeared to have quite a bit of chemistry on the “Big Game,” the TwoPlusTwo crew was looking forward to the interaction Huff would bring to the table: “Having two guys in the booth who have such great chemistry even outside of the show really cannot fail! Looking forward to it, it’s going to be legendary!”
Finally, a player on TwoPlusTwo summed up what many in the poker community seemed to feel about the news that Huff would supplant Rose on the “Big Game”: “I think Stapes’ jokes will be a little better with Huff given the longstanding chemistry the two have with each other. That said, Chris Rose is very talented as well and did a very solid job too.”
To celebrate, Huff and Stapleton headed to the Hustler Casino in Los Angeles on Thursday night. Although Huff did not post his results, Stapleton made quite a run, turning $300 into $1,166 according to his Twitter feed.
Visit PokerStars for more details.
