High Stakes Poker

Like most poker players if I`m not playing or reading about the game I like to watch other people play. High Stakes Poker is one of my favourite shows, I love the action, I love the table banter, it`s a great show. However I have my reservations about the current series. Specifically about the $500,000 buy-in game that`s running at the moment. There`s no arguement that it`s a great way to attract viewers, even someone who has little or no interest in poker might be tempted to tune in at least once to see a game being played with $5 million on the table.

My problem with this series is I`m starting to feel cheated. I know we`ve seen some huge pots but we`re also seeing those pots being run an unprecedented number of times. Take Patrick Antonius vs Sammy Farha in a pot worth just shy of a million dollars, it was run four times for christ`s sake. I know the pro`s do that to cut down on variance, and I know they have to the right to negotiate how the cash game is run, but isn`t four times taking it a bit too far?

I watched episode 15 last night and there`s a huge hand between Guy Laliberte and David Benyamine. I can`t remember exactly how the action went but Benyamine ends up pushing all-in with the nut flush draw. Laliberte calls and flips over his cards to reveal 2 pair. You can pretty much see the colour drain from Benyamine`s face, he looks physically sick. Then the negotiation starts, at first they`re going to run it once, then they`re going to play for just the money in the pot (about 70k I think) and finally Guy takes the pot and no cards are seen. It was interesting TV but it could have been great TV. Even if they`d just dealt the cards after the deal had been made it would have been pretty good.

Don`t get me wrong, I`m not after seeing someone have their life ruined for the sake of entertainment. I think it was a genuinely nice thing that Guy did for David Benyamine, but that hand illustrates why this series isn`t as good as some of the shows with smaller buy-ins. The stake money means too much to almost every player sat at that table. Guy Laliberte is probably the only player at that table that really doesn`t care about his buy-in. He admits he`s just there for fun and whilst I`m sure he doesn`t want to lose 500k he can certainly afford to. How many of the other players could say that?

I know we`ve seen some huge pots but there was more action at the lower buy-in, Patrick Antonius made the same comment in episode 15. Hopefully they will go back to stakes that the players really are willing to gamble for and if someone wants to bring 500k or a million to the table then let them but don`t insist on it.