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:
The best poker commentator on TV is
- Gabe Kaplan
6036% of all votes- Mike Sexton
2515% of all votes- Howard Lederer
1710% of all votes- Phil Gordon
159% of all votes- Norman Chad
159% of all votes- Lon McEachern
106% of all votes- Ali Nejad
106% of all votes- Vince Van Patten
64% of all votes- Kenna James
32% of all votes- Jesse May
21% of all votes- Chad Brown
21% of all votes- Robert Williamson
11% of all votes- Kennedy
11% of all votes- AJ Benza
00% of all votesTotal Votes: 167
Started: February 14, 2007
Ha ha.
Not sure what legs Benza has to stand on, nor why Gabe even has to fight back. (Or what they are even fighting about for that matter.) But if they keep it up I gotta think Benza stands to gain.
