High Stakes Poker Season 7

YouTube - High Stakes Poker Season 7 Episode 1

thoughts?

Pretty terrible. This show is really awful without the FTP pros.

Not as good without the pro's.

That chick looks like a duude.

Whats the reason why no FT pros are playing in it??
I have to admit its pretty crappy without afew of the big names from FT

Basically there wasn't going to be another season of HSP. So Pokerstars stepped in and sponsored the show this year. They also bought up the old archives of the show. FTP didn't want their players appearing on a pokerstars sponsored show, and didn't want their players to be shown on a pokerstars website where they would stream the show which could cause confusion with which site they were affiliated with.

I really think this is better then it used to be. Bring more gamblers, it is good for TV. I watched about 20 mins and so far we had huge pots and that's what I want to see, people playing for fun, not a bunch of Full Tilt sharks trying to eat each other.

So thanks Pokerstars for taking this over from Full Tilt and making it more entertaining, they just really kick ass, and now even the most entertaining online action is on Pokerstars thanks to Isildur1, and boy do I love thinking about Howard crying all alone in his bed.

i personally think there was more action for a episode 1 than in any ep1s in the history of hsp.

no doubt the effect of the 3 whales and peat.

vanessa selbst is without a doubt the best female poker player right now. i still hate her though.

I didn't really like it either. I like seeing the big pots, but don't really like all the amateurs.

I also didn't like the commentator, his voice just annoys the h*ll outta me!

I'll put it this way...they played it twice, but I never payed any attention to it cuz i wuz playin stud. I miss all the FT pros. Maybe we'll get to see Vanessa Rousso play 4 the 1st time on HSP?

This season of HSP is ridicules. First of all no Gabe = no insight into the game. Gabe knows his stuff. Fans could care less about jokes and entertainment. What we want is insight into the minds of the best players in the world. Gabe has been calling games before we could even see what the hole cards were. Norm macdonald. While I like him in Billy Madison he is not a poker expert by any means nor is he funny anymore. Might of well have gotten paulie shore to host. Next I say thanks to FTP for being too cheap to sponsor the show. Only good and entertaining players play there. Pokersstars players are as plain and slow as their website. My fav show just got ruined. I had to turn it off once norm started to "anaylise" a hand. Maybe I go watch old seasons. Cause this one SUCKS

FWIW Norm Macdonald is a poker player so it's not like they've got someone who doesn't know the game to take Gabe's spot. That said, Gabe Kaplan was perfect for the job and I wish they'd kept him. I didn't find Macdonald's commentary to be as bad as I thought it was going to be, I even laughed a few times, but he definitely doesn't have the same level of insight that Gabe had - most of the time it felt like he was just calling the action rather than adding anything.

On the whole the show was better than I thought it was going to be.

look guys, I know that we as students of the poker game want too see durrrr and Ivey, Antonious, Galfond and many others, however pokerstars do know what they are doing, and they want TV ratings so they are making it entertaining for the guys at home that don't know much about poker but they play it, you know, the regular Joe that plays once in a blue moon online or at the casino, and these people outnumber us by a lot and they bring ratings, not we, the 10k people posting on forums.

Jeez Norm, can you laser in on the teleprompter any more? And quit holding your hands like your ground hog - RELAX SON

I liked the action on the tables. The commentary wasn't that bad in my opinion. Norm will get better as the season goes on.

I'm 20mins in and this is ****ing terrible

Im scared to watch this...........

EDIT: Lol at Barry G's stache!

The show needs a play by play guy and Norm should do the color commentating. Hearing just Norm talk for an hour can be really annoying. It sounds really empty too.

Bring back Gabe!

You're right, the show has to cater to Average Joe first and foremost.

Here's the thing though - Average Joe wants to see Phil Ivey as well. Maybe not for the same reasons we do but they want to see him. Look at the ratings spike when he made the WSOP final table in 2009 compared to other years.

Doyle and Daniel Negreanu are good draws, so are Phil Laak and Antonio Esfandiari. But let's not kid ourselves either - the bulk of the drawcards for the Average Joe audience are on the Full Tilt roster.

The one thing I can't work out is why they didn't get the biggest drawcard of all (Phil Hellmuth) on the show. It's not like he has sponsor conflicts at the moment...

Full Tilt has a lot to answer for. Being so petty

I'm not liking what I'm seeing so far for this season. Gabe and A.J. were a lot better!

ROFL - no. What they're doing is actually pretty sensible. High Stakes Poker isn't just High Stakes Poker any more, it's High Stakes Poker brought to you by Poker Stars. Full Tilt spend boatloads of money securing the talents of some of the most recognisable players in the game, it doesn't make sense to lend that asset to the competition. You don't see McDonalds letting Ronald McDonald out on weekends to do promo for Burger King.

Full Tilt sponsors PAD and Stars let's its pros play there

*shrugs*

It's not such a big deal for pokerstars since Daniel Negreanu is about the only big ratings-mover they have on their roster. Anyone else they send is just getting a logo on the competition's TV show without running the risk of actually increasing its ratings.

Okay, the commentary is TERRIBLE - here's the difference...

Gabe: "He's got to be thinking..." or "He's thinking..."

Norm: "I don't know what he's thinking..." or "What is he thinking?..."


The highlight of Norm's commentary -
The 3 of clubs comes out on the turn so Norm says:
"The 3 of clubs comes out on the turn."
What insight, what instinct!!

guys, when does episode 2 air?

Disagree, I'd take Kathy Liebert or Clonie Gowan over her in a heartbeat. Idea--now that FTP has boycotted HSP, that should mean Clonie can now come ON! (Since she persona-no-grata at any FTP event.)

notsureifserious.jpeg

next saturday night. it's once a week.

I wil really have to beg to differ. If u had thrown out names like harman duke or rousso, might be worth a debate, but come on liebert, clonie freaking gowan? Only thing clonie has going for her are her big pairs if u know what I mean.

Did episode 2 air yesterday? Here's a high quality link to episode 1:

http://tv.gsn.com/shows/highstakespoker/video

Watching bad poker players is not only not interesting but also not helpful. HSP has been lauded for years by people like Dan Harrington because it was the best poker television to watch to learn how to play, and now it has devolved to this? If you want to watch whales, watch Whale Wars on Animal Planet.

Again, they're going for the Average Joe audience. Average Joe loves action, big pots and the "little guy" amateurs sticking it to the pros. The fact that the amateurs play some pretty horrible poker (and the fact that any one of them could be worth more than all the pros at the table combined) is beside the point.

On an unrelated note OMFG Andrew Robl tilts me. He's only been on for half an episode and he's already irritated me more than Norm Macdonald has for the whole season.

They're going for any audience they can get. LOLZ.

I think Norm MacDonald is hilarrious, but I can't wrap my head around him commentating on poker. Actually, if they would have kept Gabe and brought in Norm as the color man, I could definitely see that being a great combo.