Poker story on 60Minutes Wednesday

[benfranklin]

The good news is it's poker. The bad news is it's Dan Rather.

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New York, NY – April 16, 2005 – CBS News announced that ’60 Minutes Wednesday’ will show a special feature on poker, which is scheduled to air on April 20, 2005 at 8:00 pm EST. The popular weekly news program, widely acknowledged as one of the top shows on television, will devote an entire segment on poker psychology and the astounding popularity of the game. The lead reporter on the story is Dan Rather, a legendary figure in TV journalism. Rather recently retired as the CBS Evening News anchor. This is one of his first special assignments since his retirement, which occurred in March.


One of the world’s top online poker sites, PokerStars.com was instrumental in developing the story with CBS News. PokerStars.com executives, Rich Korbin -- Director of Marketing and Nolan Dalla -- Director of Communications pitched the idea of doing a special feature on poker to an Executive Producer at 60 Minutes. A short time later, Dan Rather was assigned to the story, which led to interviews and research.


The focus of this Wednesday’s program will be poker psychology and the nuances of the game. Chris Moneymaker, the 2003 World Series of Poker champion, discusses poker’s mental challenges and gives specific examples of ‘tells’ he picked up at the final table when he won the world championship. Rather interviewed Moneymaker in New York in February. Most interesting was the fact that Rather found the subject so captivating that a scheduled one-hour interview turned into a nearly three-hour discussion on poker.


Part of the Rather-Moneymaker interview included questions and answers about online poker. PokerStars.com was shown on a large video screen and Rather asked Moneymaker several questions about online tactics and strategy.


The ‘60 Minutes Wednesday’ feature is expected to be the biggest one-time audience ever to see a program which exclusively focuses on poker. With an expected 15 million viewers, poker is about to get another big boost thanks to Chris Moneymaker and PokerStars.com.


By: Nolan Dalla

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