GSN's $500K High Stakes Poker - a little soft

Now don't get me wrong, I love High Stakes Poker on the Game Show Network, and the $500K buy-in sounds like it should add more excitement to the game; but I'm a little disappointed with how soft the big confrontations have been so far. I'm not a huge fan of running it multiple times, but I can definitely understand why the players would want to reduce some of the variance in such large pots. But I don't want to see these guys let each other off the hook so much. C'mon isn't the point of poker trying to win as much of the money on (and off) the table as possible?
For instance, when Jamie Gold had pocket Kings against Sammy Farha's pocket Aces, I really wanted to see Sammy put the hammer down on Jamie and take all of his money. Not check, check, check.
Also when Guy Laliberte, having 2-pair, called David Benyamine's all-in with the nut flush draw; I want to see the result of the hand. There should have been over $1 million in the pot, but instead they agreed to let Guy take down the paltry $70K+ that they had bet prior to the all-in. At least remove some of the variance by running it twice or three times. But don't just stop the hand after the flop when the natural outcome of the hand has not been determined.
And I would like to see them play more hands. Dang, the shows an hour, and I think we only see about 6 to 8 hands played. I know we have commercials, but I'd like to see that closer to 15 to 20 hands.
Well, I hope tonight's show will end the $500K buy-in series with a BANG rather than a whimper.

*disclaimer: I do NOT have $500K to bring to a poker table, so I can only imagine playing that high even for the pro's can be a bit un-nerving.

firstly, i like your avatar since i love the matrix.

Also the gold farha hand didnt go check check check. It went raise raise raise pre flop. Then raise raise raise raise on the flop but both betting dark so flop hadnt been dealt.

At this point everyone at the table including gold and farha knew that farha had aces and gold had kings (everyone knew). Yet gold still bet turn which farha raised and jamie called. Then jame checked the river and farha checked backed on the basis that jamie was willing to go broke knowing he was broke, and farha couldnt get his head around it and didnt want to cripple gold.

Gold was weird dring that hand since he knew he was beat but kept calling and even said if you push all in on river i am calling since i have a big hand which a cant lay down. Even though his big hand was a pair after river and he knew he was beat. They say the best players know how to lay down kings against aces pre flop. Well even i know how to fold kings when i know my opponent has aces.

Anyway i preferred the first series, they seemed to have tightened up through the series in general. First series was best where negreanu brought 1 million to table and steamrolled everyone

My earlier comments were written prior to seeing Monday night's $500K buy-in finale.
Now having seen tonight's show, I must say Daniel saved it for me tonight. There were big confrontations with David pushing all-in over the top of Daniel's raise with top pair. Daniel calling out Doyle's flopped set of 3's. And Daniel coming over the top of Sammy's big bet.
This was definitely "MUST SEE TV!" tonight! No deals were made. Every pot was played out to one winner. This was great stuff! If you missed it, either look for it on Poker Tube tomorrow, or watch for the repeat showing on GSN on Wednesday night.
Enjoy!

LETS PUT IT ASIDE THE FACT THAT IT IS A TELEVISION SHOW
this is high stakes poker,this is what they do
if u had 500K in a pot wouldnt u want to lower the variance to atleast have some sort of decent outcome
guy laliberte did not take all of benyamine's money for 2 reasons
1 david is BROKE he is supposedly on a staking arrangement with patrick antonius and guy didnt want to put david in more debt
2 guy does not care about the money

if u want the ppl to push preflop for 5ooK with pocket jacks it is not going to happen, this is how i think poker should be played,if u dont like it then u dont like high stakes poker period, ur accostom to online poker where they dont make deals of such but in live games that is how it is done

guy laliberte puts me on life-tilt

I'm not suggesting they push all-in with pocket JJ's pre-flop. I hate that kind of play. But when someone pushes all-in, and someone calls the all-in; shouldn't we expect to see all five cards hit the board?

If Benyamine couldn't really afford to play this high, that's quite alright, it sounded as though there were others who would have been able to take his place. (Not me though, I can't even come up with a $500 buy-in. )

I enjoyed seeing Guy play. He played loose, but probably not as loose as Sammy.
But if they were going to be letting players off the hook so often, then why not just play at the $100K buy-in level, so not near as much would have been at stake and we could have seen the hands played out to their natural outcomes.

Having said all that, I still enjoyed the show. And tonight's finale was the BANG I was looking for.

I don't like all the home game type of stuff, chopping pots, runnin the hands 2 or 3 times, straddles, side bets etc. It just takes all the drama out of it. It makes you wonder if some or all the players have agreements to share their wins/losses. I just think there is too much chance the show is bogus.

I think high stakes poker is getting ridiculously boring, and the fact that they show about 6 hands per episode doesn't help. The stakes might be higher, but because of that reason everyone is playing tighter.
However, i have no problem with the players running large pots 4 or 5 times.