High Stakes Poker Season 6 Episode 1

High Stakes Poker on the Game Show Network is back. The first episode all portions below had some interesting No Limit Texas Hold 'Em action. There was about half live players and half online poker players. One familiar live poker player who likes to play online poker was in everybody's cross hairs, took the ribbing well, then picked up after losing one buy-in. Watch below find out who... All in all the online players, acquitted themselves well as many of them have already transitioned into simply being "poker players" by virtue of logging so many hours in live games too. More comments to follow the videos.











Now, having watched the videos you know who it was. Phil Hellmuth ran brutally bad all day almost as bad as when he decides to play poker online (or so he says). Running a king high flush into an ace high flush (but losing the minimum) was just one of the many hands he got coolered on. You could tell the frustration and the tilt started early as he naively folded to a bet and raise when he held AQ. Dario Mineiri raised with nothing, Tom Dwan reraised with little more (QJ) and Phil Hellmuth laid down AQ.

The flop brought three hearts and Dwan won the pot when he rivered a heart. His Jack of hearts played. Phil, of course, laid down the Queen of hearts. This pot seemed to simmer with him and it led to some bad decisions... it also showed the casual poker player that even some of the greatest live tournament poker players are susceptible to Tilt and other can make mistakes mere mortals make.

The new season of High Stakes Poker featured a booth with just Gabe Kaplan and no AJ Benza. This dynamic didn't really work. There was no straight man to Kaplan's jokes and half there humor when they fell flat was the reaction to them falling flat... now they are just flat. The new show featured sideline reporter Kara Scott who has a had a couple of deep World Series of Poker Main Event runs on her resume doing interviews with the players.

Her enthusiasm as a poker player was evident and its clear she'll ask the questions not as in the dark eye-candy but as someone with a knowledge base wide enough to engage the players. As American Reality shows have learned having a moderator or host with a British accent ups the "intellect" and sophistication even it's artificial.

Scott is not artificial and she just happens to be English so it was a good choice. As far as eye-candy goes there are certainly better hostesses out there for that (she's moving toward "poker room" hot and away from simply "hot" these days) so for once it appears the producers chose a beautiful woman based on her merits rather than her beauty.

In the action, Phil Ivey was the big winner. He had a chance to be an even bigger winner when he picked up Queens and Phil Hellmuth had AJ. Phil raised with AJ and Ivey moved all-in. Hellmuth stewed forever than mucked saying nice bluff. Ivey tossed his cards into the middle despite online poker phenom Tom Dwan trying to entice a show of the cards with a 2k chip.

Dwan said "I'll give you 2k if your hand was better than Jacks." Ivey smiled and refused. Afterward he said, "If you offered 5k I would have showed you my aces." Hellmuth seemed to smoulder in the background.

To twist the screw even more the best poker player in the world (Ivey) mucked his next hand as soon as he got it, saying "This is the same hand I had last time," implying he had bluffed Hellmuth with rags. The table got a big kicked out of it and steam almost came out of Hellmuth's ears.

Sure enough later he got adventurous with the type of hand he never plays and he flopped an straight draw and flush draw. He moved in on Phil Ivey on the turn. Ivey held a bigger flush draw and the King that had hit the turn paired his high card. He had to call.

With that the Poker Brat Phil Hellmuth picked up and then gave Scott a very even keeled interview. No telling when it was filmed, but if it was just after the session credit to Hellmuth. He ran really bad on the day and had the good sense to get out of there before too tilted and too coolered translated into too many lost buy-ins.