Recap of HSP Season 5, Episode 8

The bad news?

Viewers of "High Stakes Poker" were served another lackluster and unexciting episode of the show, the second in two weeks.

The good news?

Tom "durrrr" Dwan is set to return to the show next week, as he will be taking the place of Sam Simon. I'm not sure if Simon has to go somewhere or if the producers realized that something was missing with this new line-up of players, but whatever the reason, "durrrr" replaces Simon on next week's show.

The line-up for this week's show was the same as last week: Daniel Negreanu, Patrik Antonius, Phil Laak, Antonio Esfandiari, Sam Simon, Howard Lederer, Nick Cassavetes and Joe Hachem.

The amount of action has been dramatically pared down over the past couple of weeks. There haven't been any big pots as the players in the current line-up have been playing pretty timidly.

Case in point - the first hand of the episode. Esfandiari limps in with A-Q offsuit, and Phil Laak also limps in with A-K of hearts. The flop comes queen-high and Esfandiari takes down the pot with a single bet.

With the original line-up this season, there probably would have been $100,000 in the pot by the time the flop came.

The next hand was won by Daniel Negreanu. On a board of 4-3-8-A-4 with three spades, Negreanu checked with 5-6 of spades, Antonius bet $18,000 holding A-10 offsuit, and Negreanu elected to just call, taking down the $71,800 pot with his flush.

Laak and Negreanu won the next two pots after being dealt big hands (AA and KK). Unfortunately for both players, they weren't able to extract that much money from their opponents.

Negreanu and Antonius then tangled again in a $98,000 pot.

After a flop of J-2-J, Antonius bet with pocket 7's, Negreanu raised with K-J, and Antonius elected to make the call.

The turn brought the Aces of hearts. Antonius bet $27,000, and Negreanu just called.

The river brought the 9 of hearts. Negreanu checked, hoping to induce another bet from Antonius. Antonius didn't take the bait though, electing to check as well. Negreanu showed his trip Jacks and took down the $98,000 pot.

Antonio Esfandiari then won a prop bet in which he was bet that he couldn't do 35 push-ups.

Cassavetes was demanding that Esfandiari's chest hit the ground with each push-up, so someone decided to place three dinner plates under Antonio, and demanded that his chest touch the plates each time.

You had Lederer on his knees, verifying that each push-up was valid, Cassavetes screaming that his chest wasn't touching the ground, Negreanu begging the guys to hurry up, and Antonius laughing and thinking "WTF I could do 500 pushups, hurry the *#@* up".

Anyways, Antonio won the bet, as he ended up doing 47 push-ups.

Hachem and Laak both won small pots to end the episode.

Next week's preview mentions the return of Dwan, and also says that Dwan and Lederer play a "baffling" hand.

I know that I'm not the only person who is glad that Dwan is returning to the show. This current line-up is not very exciting.

The original line-up of players this season (Dwan, Greenstein, Elezra, etc) was mostly made up of players who were there to play some serious high-stakes poker, and just happened to be on TV.

This current line-up seems less concerned with playing poker, and more concerned with the fact that they are on TV. This has led to some pretty boring poker. Let's hope that the action picks up next week.

Filed Under: Poker on Television