Fans of televised poker will be relieved to hear that the popular program “High Stakes Poker” will be returning to GSN in early 2010. While there has yet to be an official announcement from the network, Poker News Daily has learned that the show will be filming new episodes in November that will begin airing in February of next year.
Barry Greenstein first let the cat out of the bag during an interview on the ESPN poker show “Inside Deal” back in August, saying that “High Stakes Poker’s” production company, Poker PROductions, was planning to assemble players for filming in October and November. Eric Drache said much of the same in an interview on the TwoPlusTwo Pokercast, saying they would convene players after filming concludes on another PokerPROductions vehicle, “Poker After Dark.” With most of the players spending the next couple of weeks at the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Europe and European Poker Tour (EPT) London stop, it will be a little while before players will return to Las Vegas, where filming will once again take place.
Poker News Daily can independently confirm that “High Stakes Poker” will return for Season 6 in February, 2010. The quick announcement of “High Stakes Poker’s” newest season stands out in stark contrast to the long delay between Season 4 and Season 5 in which the future of the show looked uncertain. Rumors swirled that a change in management at GSN meant the show, which performs well in male demographics, but fares worse with the female audience that watches other GSN shows, was not going to return. The cancellation of the World Poker Tour (WPT) on GSN cemented the belief that “High Stakes Poker” was done, but a last minute announcement in September of last year revealed the show would be back for a fifth season.
That fifth season aired earlier this year and was best known for numerous pots involving online poker pro Tom “durrrr” Dwan. Greenstein discussed two of the most memorable hands from the season during his “Inside Deal” interview. The first was a three-way pot involving Dwan, 2008 WSOP Main Event Champion Peter Eastgate, and Greenstein. Dwan flopped the worst hand, but his aggressive play managed to get Greenstein to fold pocket aces and Eastgate to fold trips in order to take down the pot. The other big pot also involved Dwan, Greenstein, and pocket aces. Greenstein and Dwan got it all-in on the flop, with Greenstein holding pocket aces to Dwan’s top pair of queens with a flush draw. Dwan hit trip queens to take down the biggest pot in “High Stakes Poker” history, worth almost $920,000.
Despite Greenstein’s rough go of it last season, he is up for the challenge once again and is already plotting his signature charity catchphrase. Previously, Greenstein has uttered phrases like “lol donkaments” on the show in order to raise money for his charity of choice, Children’s Incorporated. Greenstein told “Inside Deal” hosts Laura Lane and Bernard Lee that he is aiming to use one of the latest online poker catchphrases, “Bing, Blang, Blaow” at some point during Season Six. The phrase comes from a comical poker rap that is circulating the web via viral video and Greenstein aims to capitalize on its popularity to raise even more money for a good cause.
It will be a few months before we will see exactly how Greenstein will work “Bing, Blang, Blaow” into the upcoming season and which other top-of-the-line poker pros will be around, but in the meantime, those hankering for a televised cash game fix can tune into this week’s episodes of “Poker After Dark.” As mentioned previously, the show is also produced by Poker PROductions and this week’s game features a line-up of some prior “High Stakes Poker” favorites like Phil Ivey, Patrik Antonius, Dwan, Eli Elezra, Howard Lederer, and Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies.