An Inside Look at the National Heads-Up Poker Championship Part 3

By Dennis Oehring

This is my final report on what took place behind-the-scenes while working at the 2007 National Heads-Up Poker Championship. For more, click on the previous reports: Part 1 and Part 2.

This segment will deal with what goes on in the production trucks that are parked outside of the poker room, which relates directly to what the viewers will see when they watch the tournament on television.

For most of the productions I have been associated with in the past, this was the first where there were actually two trucks used instead of only one. The trucks, roughly the size of semi-tractor trailers, housed all of the audio and video equipment that is used in the show's production, along with highly trained technical support personnel that monitor specific functions from the trucks as the tournament is being filmed. It takes nearly two complete days to set these trucks up once they arrive at their location. These same trucks were used by NBC for coverage of NFL games and this year's Academy Awards.

When I first walked into the video truck, I was absolutely in awe of what I saw. The truck was divided into two primary areas, one housing slightly over 100 monitors located on a wall facing the primary production crew of about a dozen members seated in front of control panels. The other area had another dozen or so monitors, most with 4 panels on each screen, which were used to record and store even more information by an additional highly skilled and computer savvy group of ten.

For those of you are technologically challenged and have trouble recording a show on your DVD player or understanding all of the functions on your cell phone like me, it's difficult to put into words how complex an undertaking setting up these trucks must be. Try to envision running lines from all of the cameras inside the casino to outside in the truck for about 120 different monitors and having all of them work perfectly, and then having all the audio feeds for each of the monitors, in addition to the mics for the players, dealers, and the announcers working as well. All I can say is that if you can visualize the amount of work that goes into this, you'll never again complain about having to set up and run wires under the carpet for your home theatre.

One of my tasks involved monitoring and manually recording the action that took place on Table 3 during the matches. Sitting at a control panel with a headset on so that I could communicate with various members of the production crew, the monitor in front of me was divided into quad panels, giving me four different looks at the table. As each hand was dealt, a time code was assigned to it so that it could be easily referenced when playing back the videos. Notes were made for the people involved in post-production work as to the hands that were the most interesting to watch.

Table 3 featured Shannon Elizabeth's first three matches, so I was able to witness her impressive run in defeating Rene Angelil, Jeff Madsen, and Barry Greenstein. Other notable matches on Table 3 were the rematch between Sam Farha and Ted Forrest, one of the longest matches this year, and the match between Clonie Gowen and Kristy Gazes, each sporting their Jimmy Choo shoes that would make for an interesting side bet as the match began.

So after three long days of intense focus and hard work filming and recording the show, the denizens of the trucks could exchange high fives on another job well done. That was, at least, until the next morning, when the set inside the poker room at Caesars Palace had to be taken down and with it all of the equipment carefully disconnected, a job that takes nearly another 48 hours. When completed, the trucks could roll onto their next location, while the information contained within was shipped off to post production studios in New York.

In all, it was an incredible experience working with the staff inside the truck during the filming of the National Heads-Up Poker Championship. I simply cannot speak highly enough of the effort that the crew put in and the skills each of them possess which translated into making this production run so smoothly. They are truly the best in the business, and I'm sure you'll agree once you begin watching the tournament on NBC beginning on April 8.