High Stakes Poker...

An interesting episode. Most of the poker was lost in the chatter of Antonio Esfandiari and Phil Laak trying to drum up prop bets. Though Esfandiari who is known for his pushups bets probably hurt "business" by doing more than the minimum. He made it pretty obvious he could do at least 50 pushups. He did 47 and stopped. So next time he's offering odds anybody that's seen the show will have a hard time biting at anything less then 50.

Director Nick Cassavetes was on the hook for $1,000. He bet that Antonio couldn't do a mere 35 pushups. Seemed like Antonio might have had a couple of other fishes on the line but they just couldn't seem to bite quick enough for the other players to take their timeout from the poker.

Partik Antonius was the primary internet poker player on the show and he didn't get too involved in too many hands.

The ones he did, in this episode at least he lost. Against, Daniel Negreanu he called DN's preflop raise with A10 off suit. Daniel had led out with his favorite type of hand 5s6s. Flop came 438 with one spade. DN led again with his open ended draw and Patrik called with his overcards.

An Ace of Spades hit, and now Daniel was open-ended with a flush draw, but it was Patrik with the best hand. Daniel bet out again. Patrick called. River was a 4 of spades. Daniel made his flush, but checked maybe wary of a boat (or with his luck on High Stakes four of kind). Patrik bet his top pair and Daniel flatted for the win.

Later they clashed again with Daniel holding KJ and Patrik 77. The flop came J2J. DN checked raised Patrik and Patrik called. Turn brough an A and DN checked called Patrik's second bullet. The river went check-check.

What's maybe more interesting in the play is how Daniel, I've noticed, doesn't go to his bag of tricks against the other pros as much. Sure, his reading skills are less useful against those guys, but he's at his best chatting during a hand. In High Stakes, he checks his big hand like he's got a big hand. It's almost like these guys get so wrapped up in the meta head games they've don't monitor the information they are giving out and their opponents are too.

Patrik is mister stoic, so perhaps experience has taught Daniel he can't get much a read on him... but I think his game suffers when he doesn't try. Sure he won both pots but maybe he could have won more.