High Stake Poker returned to the Game Show Network and for those that don’t know, that means the best poker show on television is back.  It’s deep stacks pitted against deep stacks, deep thought pitted against violent aggression and it’s the epitome of poker for a poker fan.  You want to see the best players in the world engage in pots at limits so high even they have to bow out?  Then watch this show. 

The only tweak to make it any better would be to allow some Omaha action and really put the game on crack.  Several players from the first few seasons of High Stakes Poker have never been back.  Want to see how exploitable some of the supposed best players in the world are?  Put them on this show and watch them get dominated by the guys who are supposed to be their peers.

While some of the online players sit at home and play poker on a macor a pc without a camera to catch their emotion on this show they mix it up with the live players and you get to see everything.  You hear Dario Mineri’s voice crack when asked how much he has behind, you see Tom Dwan’s eyeballs scan across the table as he considers a bluff or a lay-down, you see an online poker player from “Northern Europe” as Phil Hellmuth would dismissively say get the best of Hellmuth in live chat. 

In the most recent episode Phil Hellmuth, Tom Dwan, Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu, and others battled it out.  For video of the episodes go here.  Twas a bad day to be Phil Hellmuth.  Phil Ivey in particular got the best of the self-alledged greatest poker player of all time.  In the movie “The Usual Suspects” there was a line that went something like “And Keyser Soze showed these men of will what a true man of will really is…”  That’s what Ivey did to Hellmuth.  He had Hellmuth thinking about making a call for all his chips with AJ–preflop.  Ivey of course had QQ.

Hellmuth bought in for 200k and quickly ran through it doing little wrong.  Course the hand that busted him he would have chastised anybody else for playing preflop so he got his just deserts.  Hellmuth flopped a flush and straight draw.  Ivey flopped a bigger flush draw.  The King on the turn paired Ivey’s high card and when Hellmuth shoved Ivey called forcing the Brat to draw ultra-slim.

Gus Hansen remarked on the telecast that the exit interview they were required to do would be one of the most brutal he’d ever do because it would mean he just dropped his 200k buy-in.   Hellmuth who picked up after being played into a corner in one hand after another because of the deck (he also lost with a king high flush to an ace high flush) got to experience that very interview.

He was remarkably composed considering the Poker Brat had just lost a high stakes buy-in.  Kara Scott, a new addition to the show, did the interview.  It’s clear her poker experience elevates her from the standard pretty girl on the sideline to knowledgeable sideline reporter.  She showed an earnestness in asking the questions that was a little refreshing.  Didn’t seem like she’d stand for trite answers either.

She wasn’t the only change to the episode.  There was a new mandate that there would be no prop bets on High Stakes Poker.  Last year they created some entertaining sideshows like Antonio Esfandiari’s push-ups but they also detracted from the action.  At some point, the background noise no longer was the clinking and clanking of chips it was the discussion of the minutia of prop bets.  It was a welcome change.  However, some of the players didn’t really get the memo as again in the background similar discussions occurred they were just for future prop bets away from the table.  Producers will need to re-clarify the focus is on poker.

Also, they axed AJ Benza and gave Gabe Kaplan the booth by himself.  As a solo act it’s clear Kaplan needs a sidekick and if that means moving Kara Scott to the tank with him so be it.  They really should have never fired Benza but maybe with a little time Kaplan will improve all by himself and the show will get even better.