Poker News Daily has learned that the fifth season of GSN show High Stakes Poker will debut on Sunday, March 1st. In fact, Sunday has been dubbed “Poker Night” on GSN, and is when the network will air its marquee cash game program. The program will own the 9:00pm ET slot. GSN also owns the rights to the sixth season of the World Poker Tour.
The Golden Nugget in Downtown Las Vegas is currently hosting filming of Season V of High Stakes Poker. The casino also served as the locale for Season I. In between, the popular ring game has traveled to The Palms and South Point. For the fifth season, the buy-in has been raised to a minimum of $200,000, making it one of the richest poker events ever to hit television airwaves. The first of three days of filming kicked off on Friday. Players invaded the Golden Nugget between 12:30pm and 9:30pm each day.
Players who appeared on Friday included Mike Baxter, Doyle Brunson, Alan Meltzer, Phil Laak, Eli Elezra, and Dario Minieri. On Saturday, filming continued and included Antonio Esfandiari, nicknamed “The Magician” in the poker world, reflecting his former passion. Esfandiari told Poker News Daily that he had been going through a unique preparation in the days leading up to High Stakes Poker. Just before taping started, he revealed, “I feel great. I haven’t gone out the entire week. I woke up early this morning and meditated. I don’t even know how to meditate, but I tried it. Usually, I don’t care and just won’t go out. This week, it was a little different.”
Two weeks ago, Esfandiari celebrated his 30th birthday and told Poker News Daily that he feels like he has to make better decisions in life. On what makes High Stakes Poker appealing to him, he revealed, “It’s the greatest poker show since poker got televised. I’ve played reasonably well in all of the previous seasons. During Season I, I got unlucky, but that’s poker. In other seasons, I did well.” Esfandiari has appeared on a bevy of other televised poker specials, including “Poker Superstars Invitational” and NBC’s “Poker After Dark.” In addition, he hosts “I Bet You” on the MOJO Network with Laak.
A marquee member of the WSOP November Nine will appear on High Stakes Poker Season V when it debuts on March 1st on GSN: 2008 WSOP Main Event Champion Peter Eastgate, who became the youngest WSOP Main Event winner ever last month, besting Phil Hellmuth’s standing record by two years. Eastgate has since become the face of a younger generation of poker players, who will be glued to High Stakes Poker to watch the young phenom compete with the game’s best. Eastgate took to the felts on Sunday.
Others who will appear during Poker Night on GSN are “The Notebook” director Nick Cassavetes, “The Simpons” co-creator Sam Simon, David Benyamine, Barry Greenstein, Phil Ivey, and Daniel Negreanu. Erick Lindgren, Victor Ramdin, Paul Wasicka, and David Williams have all appeared on previous seasons. There will be 13 episodes that comprise the fifth season of the show.
High Stakes Poker is narrated by A.J. Benza and Gabe Kaplan. It takes on a unique flair due to the banter of players at the table, who regularly play against each other in major tournaments around the world. Many of them also compete in the “Big Game” at the Bellagio.
Sunday is also the current home of poker on GSN. The sport can be seen from 7:00pm ET until 3:00am each week. The World Poker Tour’s seventh season, which is slated to air on Fox Sports Net, will also air on Sunday nights during the network’s national time slot.
