With Season 4 underway we talk to the producers and stars of the best poker TV show ever made
Now that poker on the telly is as prevalent as the evening news, like me you’ve probably become a bit pickier about the play you want to see. Doyle Brunson and Chip Reese at the H.O.R.S.E. final table, yes; seven nobodies muddling around for a million-dollar payout, umm, no.
Then there’s High Stakes Poker. Always rising to the top, always loaded with superstar players, this show airs only in the US – but is readily available via www.youtube. com – and gets most of us as close to the Big Game as we’re ever likely to be.
Living up to its name, High Stakes Poker is one very big cash game, shot on a set in a Las Vegas casino with very little in the way of additional artifice. Players buy in with a minimum of $100,000, though they often have way more than that at risk, and compete in a ring game of no-limit Texas Hold’em. Simple and perfect.
Besides providing access to the beautiful poker minds of Doyle Brunson, Daniel Negreanu, Barry Greenstein and Johnny Chan, the show also antes up the kind of betweenhand banter, bluster and needling that is a hallmark of every great game – whether you’re playing for cab fares at home or millions at the Bellagio. During one particularly memorable bit of back-and-forth, Freddie Deeb was accused of ‘going south’ – that is, taking money off the table and putting it in his pocket – a big no-no in a cash game. It evolved into an epic blow-up, with enough cursing to fuel a Tarantino script. Deeb turned apoplectic and the other pros gleefully fuelled his fires of rage.
None of this is particularly sporting, but it’s all real and totally indicative of the experience that High Stakes Poker – which provided a peek at how Negreanu opens up his game when he finds himself $700,000 in the hole – offers its viewers. Vertigo-inducing hands of poker come complete with prop betting, pot splitting, the borrowing of money, and pleas to ‘run it twice’.
The pitch
If not for a chance encounter between Chan and a posse of television executives, there is a fair chance that this greatest poker show of all time would never have come into existence.
The gestation began after Eric Drache and Mori Eskandani (both of whom made their bones on the high stakes poker circuit but have found more success in the business of poker) had just finished pitching a gimmicky TV idea to several executives from the LA based Game Show Network.
The execs were non-expressive in their collective take on the idea and suggested that everybody reconvene that night at Jasmine, the Bellagio’s gourmet Chinese restaurant. ‘While we were eating, Johnny Chan stopped by the table to say hello to us and Henry Orenstein [a TV producer, inventor of the hole-card camera, and high stakes Stud player in his own right],’ recounts Drache. ‘Johnny said to Henry, ‘Yeah, I just lost $700,000 to Phil Ivey.’
This bit of info was casually dropped, in the way that only a professional poker player can reveal a six-figure loss, as if he’s letting you know that a pack of breath-mints had been misplaced.
It definitely caught the attention of the GSN executives. They soon came back to Drache, Eskandani and Orenstein with the idea of doing a cash game on TV. ‘I’m sure they thought every pot would have $700,000 in it,’ says Drache. ‘We knew that wouldn’t be the case. But we did know that there’d be a lot of action and a lot of ribbing. These guys have rap sheets on each other. It wouldn’t be like the World Series where you have a final table with nine people who are strangers.’
It’s all relative
That’s not to say that everybody is a known entity. Part of the High Stakes formula centres on the matching of wealthy amateurs with hard-bitten professionals. The combo keeps things simultaneously relatable and off-kilter, especially when non-pros prevail.
And that’s not quite as unlikely as it initially sounds. Television affects the way the pros play for cash – Drache says that Todd Brunson and Jennifer Harman both play tighter on High Stakes than they do in Bobby’s Room, where the pressure is purely financial – and they can be self-conscious about making mistakes under the glare of public scrutiny.
Beyond that, the considerable cash reserves of their opponents are hardly inconsequential. After all, a billionaire might not flinch at the possibility of losing half-a-million dollars in a single hand, but a pro will, especially if it represents a sizeable chunk of their bankroll. This last point will be driven home during the upcoming season of High Stakes Poker.
In one hand Guy Laliberte, founder of Cirque du Soleil, is heads-up against David Benyamine, going after a pot that bubbles with seven figures in cash and chips. Both players are all-in, they show their cards, and Laliberte is a 2/1 favourite. He offers to take $200,000 and to split the rest with Benyamine. The way Drache calculates it, Benyamine was getting $120,000 in equity.
Laliberte, who is no sucker at this game (he recently finished fourth in a WPT event at the Bellagio), justifies his action by saying, ‘You probably need the money more than I do.’
Doyle Brunson, who’s not seen a whole lot of charity at the poker table, witnesses the move and responds, ‘Probably? That’s his whole life in the pot, and you make this kind of money in one day.’
During a break in filming, off-camera, Laliberte tells Eric Drache, ‘Actually, I make $2m a day. But it’s no problem.’
Lowest common denomination
Other non-pros, though, are less classy with the cash. Such was the case when Bob Stupak, a casino owner and old-school showman, expressed an interest in being on High Stakes. Drache and Eskandani were sceptical. He didn’t play at this level and they couldn’t imagine things going off without a hitch. But Stupak had promised to sit down with somewhere between $100,000 and $1m. They figured it would be around $400,000.
What they didn’t expect was what actually happened. Minutes before play was scheduled to begin, Stupak entered the set, trailed by a uniformed security guard, carting 10 racks of chips. It looked like he had come through with the promised million. On closer inspection, though, each chip was black instead of yellow (that is, hundreds as opposed to thousands). Stupak was told that he could have no more than $4,000 in blacks.
He baulked and Drache replied sarcastically, ‘Why don’t you buy in for $25 chips? It’ll look like even more and you can pretend you have somewhere between $100,000 and a million.’ Stupak acquiesced and a day later called Drache to explain that he wasn’t feeling well that day and wasn’t acting himself.
But the weirdness did not stop there. Stupak spent most of his session roaming around the set, played a total of four hands, caught Aces, and got action from Daniel Negreanu – who was getting soundly hammered at the time.
Then, during his post-play interview, Stupak unkiddingly told commentator Gabe Kaplan (who’s skilled at poker but is best known for portraying the title character on the American TV show Welcome Back Kotter) that he was the best player at the table. ‘Daniel shouldn’t have called with two Sevens,’ Kaplan later says to me, stating the obvious. ‘He’ll tell you that he had a read on Stupak. But I think that was an example of Daniel steaming.’
Sick hand
One of the most stunning moments on the show – and, in fact, in all of televised poker – came at the end of a session in the first season. The producers were pretty much done taping, and, in fact, the game was supposed to wrap for the day, but they had a little more videotape left and decided to deal one last hand. Players were literally packing up their chips as Barry Greenstein got dealt Aces.
Sammy Farha, sitting to his right, looked down to see two Kings. Before the flop, Farha pushed all-in, and, of course, Greenstein called. Then the unthinkable happened: Farha flopped a third King and took $180,000 off Greenstein in the blink of an eye.
Though Kaplan described unflappable Greenstein as ‘the calmest man in the building’, Eric Drache saw things from another perspective: ‘That was the last hand for poor Barry. That night he was flying to a college in Illinois to give a speech on why students should finish college before trying to become poker pros. He had to be sick on the flight.’
During the first taping of the following season, which took place at the Palms, I happened to be backstage and chatted with Greenstein. For obvious (and not so obvious) reasons, he was less than thrilled to be there. ‘I wasn’t that interested in doing today’s show,’ he told me. ‘I’d much rather play in the Big Game at the Bellagio. But Doyle and Eli [Elezra] are here. If they decided not to play, I also would have not played. There is value in exposure, but there’s also a downside: people can watch and get information on how to play against me.
They’re paying us $1,250 an hour to play. But that’s not reasonable at all. I’m risking $100,000.’ On the other hand, he acknowledges, ‘I think I’m a favourite in this game; I have a reasonable chance of winning six figures. That’s when something like this is worth my time.’
For no-limit specialists like Phil Laak and Antonio Esfandiari, the show is an opportunity to play their preferred form of poker at stakes that are rarely spread. Plus it gives them a chance to show off. ‘I live and breath cash games,’ says Laak, who is most widely known as a tournament player. ‘In tournaments the only thing that gets taped is the endgame, which is a rare animal. This is deep-stacked poker and is very intriguing.’ He points out that the Laak you see playing for cash is not the goofball Laak that you see in tournaments: ‘When you play for uber-high stakes, you can’t be in antic mode.’
Maybe not, but it doesn’t stop the pros from chatting away as if the cameras aren’t there. In one memorable exchange, Doyle Brunson bemoaned the fact that he’s always playing against tables full of foreigners. When somebody commented that Barry Greenstein isn’t a foreigner, Brunson dryly responded, ‘He’s Jewish.’
Much to the producers’ credit, that bit of political incorrectness remained in the show. Another time, after Lebanese-born Sammy Farha relentlessly tried to get Los Angeles Lakers owner Jerry Buss to split a pot with him (Buss wouldn’t budge), Gabe Kaplan commented, ‘Jerry must feel like he’s at an outdoor market where a merchant is trying to sell him a rug or a goat.’ The comment got lots of laughs, but it also drew the ire of Arabic viewers and was removed after one airing.
And probably the best line that you’ll never get to hear on High Stales Poker was riffed by multi-millionaire real estate broker Bob Safai during one of the upcoming season’s sessions. After Phil Hellmuth took a powder, wandered away from the game in the wake of a big loss, and returned looking like he was ready to resume playing, the wealthy amateur cracked, ‘Had a hot shower and jerked off? Are you all relaxed now?’
Big attraction
Part of what makes High Stakes Poker so compelling is the seemingly ragtag mix of Big Game regulars, famous tournament players, well-heeled amateurs, and a smattering of under-the-radar cash game professionals who are more skilled than anyone at home would imagine. That said, the allure of the show (on which logos are verboten) is easy to see.
For amateurs, it’s a cheap way to square off against the game’s greats. In the Big Game $100,000 might get you through a single hand, but on High Stakes it can fund an entire session. If you win a hand against one of the pros, you’re a hero; if you blow through six figures that you can afford to shed, there’s no shame in losing it to this crowd.
For the Big Gamers, this show looks like easy money. Under-the-radar pros and tournament superstars come on for the opportunity to prove themselves. Comport yourself as well as previously unknown cash-gamer Bradley Booth did and you have instant recognition among the world’s poker fanatics. All you need to do is hold nothing but gumption, bluff $300,000 into Phil Ivey’s Kings, and get him to fold.
Of course, though, it can cut the other way as well. Chris Ferguson did his first bit of cash game playing on the show and appeared completely out of his element. He gave no action, played like a nit, and even looked a little goofy in the preacher-man get-up that makes him seem so cool when you see him on TV in tournaments.
Though he emerged a financial winner from his brief stint at the table (he happily volunteered to leave and make way for a new player), he didn’t impress anybody with his ability to mix it up while putting large sums of money at risk. ‘Chris didn’t gamble,’ says Eskandani. ‘The cards hit you, you have a big hand against another big hand, and you win? Big deal. We want to see if you can dance. Thousands of players can play tight and win. So what? Only a handful can come in here and zig and zag and really do the dance.’
This coming season, the cost of dancing has got higher. Traditionally, the buy-in on the show has been $100,000. But for the last seven episodes of Season 4, you need $500,000 to sit down. ‘It’s a real gunfight,’ promises Eskandani. ‘It’s a test to see whether or not you can stand real bullets, as opposed to the rubber bullets used in tournaments. You come in knowing that a record of 35-and-1 is not good enough when you use real bullets.’ He considers the metaphor, then mashes it up: ‘This is high stakes for the players but priceless for the fans.’
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