Last week, PokerNews brought exclusively brought you the news that a brand-new poker show will be coming to poker audiences later in 2026.
Deepstack will be a dedicated episodic cash game show incorporating the BLUVV game, a variant of Squid game, brought to you by high stakes poker player Elton Tsang, and Deepstack Managing Director Jelle Moene.
Not only are they hoping the format will shake up the poker industry, but they’re bringing a full arsenal of technological add-ons that they hope will prove revolutionary for their intended audiences.
Behind the Deepstack Tech
Tsang told PokerNews that they’ve developed their own software to provide a variety of new features for the viewer, including the ability to measure heart rates from video. This remote photoplethysmography (rPPG) technology, developed by Deepstack’s sister tech company Deepvision, uses a camera to collect biometric data from someone’s face, with the heart rate displayed on the screen next to them.
In an exclusive sneak peek, Deepstack have shown for the very first time how their technology overlays will look to the viewer. In the hand, Elton Tsang has bluffed the river of 7♠6♥5♥10♣A♦ with K♣3♣ for just king-high. Meanwhile, Wiktor Malinowski K♦10♦ is deciding whether to call with just second pair or not.
First, the technology locks onto the player’s face, and begins to read the pulse from the skin. As the tension ratchets up and Malinowski continues his tank, the heart rate increases until Malinowski finally relinquishes his hand.
The rPPG Technology Searches For a Face
The Technology Starts to Read the Heartrate from the Skin
Track the Player’s Heartrate Throughout the Hand
This “technology layer” is what Moene thinks will change the game when it comes to the Deepstack broadcast.
“I think by lifting up the curtain and showing what’s going on behind the poker face, we’ll extinguish or remove the boredom that people right now feel when they are watching a poker show.”
“We saw during the WSOP with face detection and the little rectangles,” says Moene. “That’s where we were two-and-a-half years ago. So where we’re at now, I think it’s already quite a big upgrade to what you were seeing [during the WSOP].”
“I think by lifting up the curtain and showing what’s going on behind the poker face, we’ll extinguish or remove the boredom that people right now feel when they are watching a poker show. Things like heart rate, but we’re developing some other ones like timing tells and blinking detection — there’s going to be a technology layer to it.”
Tsang agrees, saying that the shift of focus will hopefully make the show more interesting to the viewers.
“As a poker player, whenever I see poker streams now, they’re very standardised. It’s been the same for the past 15 years. Everybody tells me it’s boring – they either fast forward or watch it on 1.5x speed. Nobody watches the whole thing.”
“Let them actually want to watch this and enjoy it when they want to watch it. That’s my vision.”
Future Advancements
Moene says that they’re working with a variety of different people to improve the technology, and thereby improve the product.
“There’s much more to come,” says Moene. “I think we can really expect some very cool stuff to come. It’s basically poker, but supported by tech and a better cinematic feel, and hopefully a user engagement system. That combination will make it quite a bit more than just the poker.”
“It’s safe to say that, if you have some creative minds around, you can really capture a lot at a poker table, which is right now not being captured”
The first season is underway, with Moene sat on a daily basis with a team of editors and production team looking at how the eventual product will work.
“We have three camera crews, and we are really shooting our season one, while at the same time working together to basically edit the episodes. We have our tech guys upstairs developing in real time, and we’re starting to see what the opportunities are.”
“It’s safe to say that, if you have some creative minds around, you can really capture a lot at a poker table, which is right now not being captured. So far it’s just working out great.”
The pre-edited show will enable the technology to shine through overlays, and for Deepstack to prepare shorts and a content eco-system around each episode, something that wouldn’t be possible with a stream.
“The first one we’re going to take our time,” said Tsang. “The product we want to create has a lot of dual-screen elements, which wouldn’t be possible with streaming right now. We want to make sure it’s good before we publish it. But in a matter of a few days, we’ve had so many big, interesting hands and some crazy, aggressive players.”
Will Shillibier
Managing Editor