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The 5th Season of the High Stakes Poker on GSN

On August 14th, 2008, although the taping for the High Stakes Poker game has yet to start and the location and the players have yet to be pick, Vice President of Original Programming and Development for GSN Kevin Belinkoff and President of Poker Productions, Mori Eskandani sat down with Card Player IV to ensure that the highest-rated poker show of the network will be back for a 5th season.

The High Stakes Poker's popularity comes from its unique cash-game format, where some of the top poker players all over the world square it off with hundreds of thousands of dollars of their own cash at stake. Rumors had been abound for months about the future of High Stakes Poker and whether or not the GSN Network will pick it up for another season after allowing the world poker tour contract to expire on May 24th, 2008. Then the decision was made to bring back the show for another season, despite the absence of the WPT show. The WPT has found another home on the Fox Sports Network for Season VII.

Due to the unpredictable nature of top poker players, specific details about the new season were difficult to come by. Poker players do not always fulfill with their commitments and are sometimes not able to produce the needed bankroll, so a specific line-up of players for the season was not readily available. GSN said that they are currently looking for fresh faces, who can present an interesting new way of playing the game.

Previous players have sat down with at least the minimum buy-in cost of $100,000 and played a never-increasing format of $300 dollars to $600 with a $100 ante. But in the past seasons, the players have been participating with more cash, sometimes buying in for $1 million.

While participants will still dictate the whole game play, Eskandani hopes to see the minimum buy-in cost improve to $250,000, allowing the blinds to improve to $400 -$800.

09/07/2008, Sunday
Todd Sanders

The 5th Season of the High Stakes Poker on GSN

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