High Stakes Poker on GSN

[Subby]

Last episode aired last night - and it was outstanding, again.

The show has been picked up for another season (http://www.casinocitytimes.com/news/article.cfm?contentId=157634) and is filming now.

Some quick comments on this season:

- It's fun to watch Hellmuth get bullied by better players
- Sammy Farha is a great, great player (and lucky as hell)
- Even the pros tilt (some of the plays Danny N made while trying to get unstuck seemed pretty bad)
- I don't think Greenstein or Doyle Brunson are genetically capable of tilting.

Players I'd like to see in the next season: Ivey, Matusow, and maybe some of the more well know Internet players like Prahlad Friedman and Patrik Antonius...

[Barkeep49]

I have enjoyed this the most of any show since I started watching the WPT a couple years ago. I think NL cash games are my best game in poker, though I seem to be strangely good at 7 card stud HU, and so it's been fascinating seeing how they play and has definitely helped me improve my own game a great deal. I also think that Gabe Kaplan has a great mix between analysis and entertainment, though whatever the other guys name is, should be dumped.

[dixieflatline]

Sad, no GSN for me. I pretty much have completely stopped watch tourneys on TV but I would probably watch this if I had GSN. Glad to hear it got picked up for another year. How is the commentating?

[Subby]

Tourney poker on television seems pretty played out to me. WPT is just milking a cash cow right now and not really breaking any new ground. I'd love to see them cover an entire event and spread it out over a few episodes a ala the WSoP Main Event.

High Stakes Poker is a great anecdote. Kaplan is great for the color commentary (AJ Benza is terrible play by play), but the best part - the gold - is the table talk between the players.

I know you can get the torrents of these somewhere out there...this is how most people seem to watch it (fortunately whatever package I have for DirectTV carries GSN).

[Malificent]

Time Warner took away my GSN so I am now torrenting the episodes. Not too hard, really.

[dixieflatline]

Well I guess I am going to have to get on the torrent revolution. I found this on 2+2:


From the "latest news" section of ALL IN magazine's website, posted Monday, April 10:

High Stakes Poker Season Two Participants Announced
Author: Eric Raskin

On the same day that the finale of the first season of the highly popular High Stakes Poker airs (check it out at 9 p.m. EST tonight on GSN, with exciting new cash-game action plus recaps from the entire season of play), the second season of HSP gets underway at the Palms Casino. At noon Vegas-time today, the first of two days of filming will commence, and allinmag.com has exclusive access to the complete list of names confirmed to play over the course of the next two days.

Returning from Season One:
Daniel Alaei
Doyle Brunson
Todd Brunson
Freddy Chamanara
Eli Elezra
Antonio Esfandiari
Sam Farha
Jennifer Harman
Daniel Negreanu
Shawn Sheikhan
Mimi Tran

New to the action for Season Two:
Amnon Filippi
David Grey
Phil Laak
Erick Lindgren
Minh Ly
Mike Matusow
Mike Mizrachi
Corey Zeidman

And our inside sources at High Stakes Poker tell us to look for a few surprise players to jump into the action in addition to the 19 names listed above. Stay tuned to allinmag.com for updates on who those players are and on all other breaking news regarding High Stakes Poker.

So no Barry, Ted, or Ivey. Matusow replaces Hellmuth. NL ring is still interesting but I would love it if they switched to mixed limit ring games. Everyone loves NL though. Even the final table of the mixed limit WSoP event switches to NL for the cameras.

[Malificent]

God help me, why Phil Laak?

[Barkeep49]

Tourney poker on television seems pretty played out to me. WPT is just milking a cash cow right now and not really breaking any new ground. I'd love to see them cover an entire event and spread it out over a few episodes a ala the WSoP Main Event.

Are you aware of what will be forth coming with the PPT? It sounds like it'll be more up your alley with every hand at every table being possibly on TV.

[Subby]

I don't even know what that is...

Sounds interesting. How can I subscribe to your newsletter?

[SirFozzie]

The Professional Poker Tour, a WPT sub tour, where you have to be a name player just to get in..

[dixieflatline]

It is actually a pretty interesting idea. You earn a "tour card" by playing well on the WPT the previous year (or maybe other events as well). The tourneys are all freerolls with the money put up by sponsorship and TV rights. So far all of the tourneys have been pretty low stakes (for what these players usually play) but if it gets bigger it might turn into something. Their hope is with final tables of big name players more people will want to watch.

[Barkeep49]

In order to qualify you have to have done one of the following:
Final Table at a WPT event or a WPT Championship, by scoring as a top 10 point leader in WPT Player-of-the-Year rankings, by winning or placing highly in the $10K buy-in event at the World Series of Poker, by securing a spot on either CardPlayer Magazine's Card Player of the Year Top 10 list or Poker Europa's Top 10, or by being a member of the Poker Hall of Fame