Veronica Brill, the Mike Postle alleged cheating scandal whistleblower, made her debut as a PokerGO host on "Poker After Dark," the first episode of Season 12. But she wasn't the only star of the show.
Frank "The Tank" Stepuchin, a colorful poker pro who is always the life of the party, unsurprisingly livened things up early on. The motormouth ran into a few action hands right off the bat. No-limit hold'em at $50/$100 stakes and a $100 big blind ante was the game played ($10,000 minimum buy-in).
In one of the first hands of the episode, Stepuchin turned up the old seven-deuce in the big blind. Most of the time, you'd want to fold 7-2 as it is the worst hand in no-limit Texas hold'em. But they were playing the seven-deuce game, so any player who won with 7-2 was paid an extra $100 by every other player at the table.
With that extra incentive in mind, Stepuchin, an action player, couldn't refrain from calling a raise to $400 by Alex Ding (pocket jacks). The colorful poker pro in the big blind got a dream flop (J-7-7) but was unaware it was actually a doom flop.
Ding continued on the flop for $400, and of course the player with 7-2 came along for the ride. The K hit on the turn and Ding again fired out a bet, this time $2,700. The river Q was meaningless, improving neither player's hand, and Stepuchin this time led for $3,200. His opponent quickly moved all-in for $7,700 total and got a quick call.
After losing that massive pot, Stepuchin would bounce right back on his re-buy in an even crazier cooler. "The Tank" had pocket queens and was up against former "Survivor" contestant Ronnie Bradah's A-J and poker vlogger Marle Cordeiro's K-J. The flop ran out J-7-5 before another J hit on the turn, a seemingly damaging blow for Stepuchin. But he hit his Q on the river and more than doubled through Bardah. Cordeiro, despite having trips and a strong kicker, saw the writing on the wall and folded her big hand on the river.
Veronica Brill in action
Ali Nejad returned as the lead commentator for "Poker After Dark," a role he's held all 12 seasons. Veronica Brill, however, made her debut on the popular poker show, which now airs on the PokerGO app.
Brill, if you'll recall, became famous around the poker community for outing Mike Postle as a cheater in 2018. She has previous poker broadcasting experience as a commentator on "Stones Live," the live-streamed cash game show in Northern California Postle was accused of cheating on.
In her new job on "Poker After Dark," she interviewed players' before and after hands, and was smooth from behind the mic, almost as if she's a natural in the role.
You can watch the entire episode, along with all previous episodes of "Poker After Dark," on the PokerGO app.
Featured image courtesy of PokerGO's show "Poker After Dark"
