Ali Nejad

Ali Nejad
Ali Nejad in 2008
Born (1978-02-25) 25 February 1978 (age 46)
NationalityIranian-American
OccupationTelevision presenter
Known forCoverage of World Series of Poker
StyleHost / play-by-play
TelevisionESPN, Poker After Dark, and PokerGO

Oliver "Ali" Nejad (born 25 February 1978) is an Iranian-American television personality, who has hosted several shows including Road Trip on ESPNU, and has been a fill-in host for UNite, also on ESPNU.[1] In May 2014, Nejad began working at HLN and hosted the network's program The Daily Share. He also executive produced and hosted his own award-nominated show, The Social Life.

Though he has worked on-air since age 17 on a variety of projects, he is also known for his work as a poker commentator. Nejad was the off-screen announcer on NBC's Poker After Dark and the color commentator on NBC's National Heads-Up Poker Championship.[2][3][4] He has also been a correspondent for ESPN's World Series of Poker coverage, a commentator for ESPN's Pro-Am Poker Equalizer series, co-commentator with Chad Brown on the Ultimate Poker Challenge series and with Daniel Negreanu on the PCA 2009 series.[5] In 2014, he hosted Alpha 8 for WPT.[6]

Nejad has made three appearances as a player on commentators' week on Poker After Dark. In his first appearance, he finished sixth after Gabe Kaplan flopped a set of 10s to his set of 4s. In the second, he finished second to Mark Gregorich and in the third appearance he finished fifth, again being knocked out by Kaplan. He is a former "friend of Full Tilt Poker" and former co-host of the Poker Road Radio podcast on pokerroad.com.

  1. ^ Blackburn-Evans, Gracie (3 September 2012). "I Follow: Ali Nejad". ESPN Front Row. Retrieved 4 December 2023.
  2. ^ Blount, Chuck (23 June 2008). "Nejad makes name for himself on air". The Lawton Constitution. Retrieved 4 December 2023.
  3. ^ Rinkema, Remko (31 January 2019). "Big Talk and Big Plays: Ali Nejad on Poker After Dark". PokerGO Tour. Retrieved 4 December 2023.
  4. ^ "Host With The Most". Poker After Dark. NBC. Archived from the original on 25 June 2010. Retrieved 26 January 2010.
  5. ^ Rosenbloom, Steve (9 August 2006). "Nejad's fork in the road". ESPN.com. Retrieved 4 December 2023.
  6. ^ "Ali Nejad". World Poker Tour. Retrieved 4 December 2023.