Ali Nejad
| Ali Nejad | |
|---|---|
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| Born | February 25, 1978 |
| Occupation | Television presenter |
Oliver "Ali" Nejad (born February 25, 1978) is an Iranian-American television personality, who has hosted several shows including "Road Trip" on ESPNU, and has served as a fill-in host for "UNite," also on ESPNU. In May 2014 Ali began working at HLN and hosted the network's programs 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 served as the off-screen announcer on NBC's Poker After Dark and the color commentator on NBC's National Heads-Up Poker Championship. He has also served as a correspondent for ESPN.com's World Series of Poker coverage, commentator for ESPN's Pro-Am Poker Equalizer series, co-commentator with Chad Brown on the Ultimate Poker Challenge series, and alongside Daniel Negreanu on the PCA 2009 series. In 2014 Ali hosted Alpha 8 for WPT.
Nejad has made 3 appearances as a player on commentators week on Poker After Dark. In his first appearance, he finished 6th after Gabe Kaplan flopped a set of 10's to his set of 4's. In the 2nd, he finished 2nd to winner Mark Gregorich; and in the 3rd appearance he finished 5th, 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.
During high school in Albany, CA through to college at UC Berkeley, Nejad hosted and reported for "First Cut," a local NBC affiliate show in the San Francisco bay area, where he began his television career. Having been a recreational poker player for years, Nejad dropped out of Berkeley in 1998 to pursue playing poker full-time. He worked as a dealer and prop player before eventually becoming a successful high limit cash game player. After 4 years playing poker, he returned to television in 2002, hosting an MTV pilot about video games that despite not get picked up for a full season, marked his return to TV.
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