July 21, 2008
HSP was gone, and then back again, and then not really at all … but now Bluff Europe is reporting that GSN has picked up the option for a fifth season of High Stakes Poker. Apparently GSN just had to get rid of the WPT before they could renew? That seems plausible enough — that the new brass at GSN may have decided they had room for only one poker show, and they wanted to dance with the ones who brung them. Considering GSN’s extended dealings with the WPT before bidding them adieu, that might make sense with why they left Gabe Kaplan and AJ Benza in the dark without letting them go.
Rumors that the new season will include Pot Limit Omaha are just that … rumors … but how cool would that be, though, if they did include that game?
UPDATE: AJ Benza confirms, “I’m back baby! Looks like we’ll start taping in early September. Cant wait.”
Posted by
DanM at 3:52 pm
June 18, 2008
This is kinda a leftover link (thanks to Short-Stacked Shamus for sending it to me 10 days ago) … but check out the June 5 episode of the Ante Up poker podcast.
About halfway through this episode of the what is clearly the best poker podcast on the Florida gulf coast, Chris and Scott conduct a phone interview with AJ Benza, who I gotta say is pretty damn funny when not in Gabe Kaplan’s shadow. With genuine Brooklyn candor, he discusses not only what he knows about his own show, but also “Doyle Brunson’s tits,” Dustin Diamond as “a misunderstood asshole,” David Goldhill (the new head of GSN), and what it is about High Stakes Poker that works: “Let’s get guys back on TV who drink, smoke, and punch people in the eye.”
Good stuff from Ante Up.
Click here to download/listen to the episode.
Posted by
DanM at 3:55 pm
May 13, 2008
It seems that way. The show that pioneered Poker on TV 2.0 hasn’t filmed a new season for ‘08 — they usually did so in March or April, I believe — and there seem to be no plans to do so any time soon. Reliable sources tell us:
Far as Gabe and I know….the show isnt coming back. Apparently…the network is going to go in a different direction and that aint good news for our show, especially since we skew a higher-aged audiuence. Never mind that we’re the network’s No. 1 show. Still and all, no one calls us from the network to say squat. Only Kevin Bellincoff checks in periodically, but it just don’t seem like good news. If you ask me…they’re treating us like shit. All we ever did was make them a bunch of money.
Wow, so there you have it. I also remember seeing promos for a cool new show where some pros crashed a home game, MTV-style, and covered the action with hole-card cams and presumably rawer HSP-style banter. Was looking forward to it — damn, can’t remember its name — but supposedly that show had inked a two-year deal with GSN. But haven’t seen that show pimped in weeks.
NOTE: GSN seems to have seriously downgraded the High Stakes Poker web presence, too.
Posted by
DanM at 11:36 am
March 29, 2007
Did anyone else catch High Stakes Poker 3 on Monday? It’s a great episode this week … with Mike Matusow, Daniel Negreanu, Phil Ivey, Antonio Esfandiari, Phil Laak, et al. We see David Williams needled for his bling, and he retorts by skillfully wielding “the Sang” (9-2 … kinda like the Hammer, only a wee-bit stronger). And then Yukon Brad Booth shows up and buys in with a cool $1 million in cash, suddenly posing a new threat to Brian Townsend’s fortress of bills. Awesome, great poker.
But the real battle in this episode (which repeats tonight) seems to be taking place off the table — between the two announcers, Gabe Kaplan and AJ Benza. If this is new shtick … well then good job, because it’s pretty entertaining. But even better, you get the sense they truly don’t like each other and are in the midst of a career catfight … especially when Kaplan calls out Benza for having his agent complain about Gabe to GSN.
Benza, is actually a pretty interesting sparring partner for Kaplan. For one, he’s a former blogger for the not-so-poker blog Oddjack. Before that, his broadcasting claims to fame included a studio brawl with Stuttering John (from Howard Stern) that eventually came to blows in the hallway.
Click below to see what Pokeratizens had to say about these two just last month:
More…
Posted by
DanM at 5:04 am
