On Sunday night, the fifth season of High Stakes Poker will premiere on GSN. The home of the sixth season of the World Poker Tour, GSN owns the rights to 13 new episodes of the popular cash game show featuring some of the top minds in the game. This time around, the young guns of the poker world will be pitted against some of the game’s best. Yes, you’ll see familiar names like Doyle Brunson and Daniel Negreanu battle it out in the $200,000 buy-in game. However, you’ll also see up and comers like Tom Dwan and Peter Eastgate, both in their early twenties, take on poker’s elite.
Write this date down: Sunday, March 1st at 9:00pm ET. That’s when you can catch the first installment of the brand new season of High Stakes Poker on GSN. The cash game was filmed at the Golden Nugget in Downtown Las Vegas, the site of the very first season of the show. Players competed over three days, filming between nine and 12 hours daily. Players who were scheduled to be a part of its filming included Patrik Antonius, Mike Baxter, David Benyamine, Doyle Brunson, Nick Cassavetes, Tom Dwan, Peter Eastgate, Eli Elezra, Antonio Esfandiari, Barry Greenstein, Phil Hellmuth, Full Tilt Poker pro Phil Ivey, Phil Laak, Howard Lederer, Giorgio Medici, Dario Minieri, Daniel Negreanu, Ilari Sahamies, Sam Simon, and Bob Safai.
The group took to the storied Las Vegas casino in December. A total of 13 episodes were created, which will air one at a time on the cable station. Also on Sunday nights are reruns of the sixth season of the World Poker Tour (WPT), which GSN acquired after the WPT moved from The Travel Channel. The roving tournament series now makes its home on Fox Sports Net, which recently picked up the rights to its eighth season.
Fox Sports Net is in the midst of airing new episodes filmed as part of Season VII of the WPT. Ironically, those also air on Sunday nights, making for a busy evening for fans of the game. However, the WPT is often preempted by various local sporting events such as the National Hockey League, college basketball, and Major League Baseball. Your best bet is to go onto TVGuide.com and look up the network’s telecast schedule for your area. The show typically re-airs on Mondays, Wednesdays, or Fridays in markets where it is preempted over the weekend.
On Monday nights, Fox Sports Net airs Season 2 of the Best Damn Poker Show, which features Ultimate Bet pros Annie Duke and Phil Hellmuth grooming the next crop of poker pros. Each selects a group of poker players, who are eliminated as the season progresses. Last season’s winner, Tracy Scala, is now a member of the Ultimate Bet Star Players Team along with James “P0KERPR033” Campbell, Adam “Roothlus” Levy, “Hollywood” Dave Stann, Tiffany Michelle, and Michael Binger. You’d better hurry to catch this show, however. There are just seven episodes in total and it only runs through March.
Need more poker? Check out The Celebrity Apprentice on NBC. Annie Duke will represent the poker industry and raise money for charity against some staunch competition. Joining her and facing real estate mogul Donald Trump will be Andrew Dice Clay, Brian McKnight, Brande Roderick, Clint Black, Claudia Jordan, Dennis Rodman, Herschel Walker, Jesse James, Joan Rivers, Melissa Rivers, Khloe Kardashian, Natalie Gulbis, Scott Hamilton, Tom Green, and Tionne Watkins.
The Celebrity Apprentice cast represents quite an eclectic group. You have Drew Barrymore’s ex-husband, the T in musical group TLC, a Playboy Playmate, a basketball player turned pro wrestler turned restaurant owner, one of the chicks from Deal or No Deal and The Price is Right, and a Heisman Trophy winner. Duke will play for Refugees International, a spin-off of Ante Up for Africa. The show airs for two hours beginning at 9:00pm ET on NBC on Sunday nights, so you’ll need to set your Tivo to record this or High Stakes Poker.
No discussion of poker on television would be complete without talking about the finale of the WSOP Europe Main Event on ESPN2. Just to make matters more complicated, this airs at 10:00pm ET on ESPN2 on Sunday, March 1st. The final table took 21 hours to pan out, but viewers at home can watch it unfold in just two.
How you will devote your time and various recording devices is up to you!
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