High Stakes Poker Hands
The players participating in HSP4 have millions at stake ready to win or lose it all.maybe on a single hand. HIGH STAKES POKER: Season 4 promises to be the richest cash game on TV. Get set because the last seven episodes of this new season will showcase $5 million+ on the table. Once again the world's top players and personalities face-off against newcomers putting-up at least $100,000 of.
© Getty Images Georgia Senate battle is a high stakes poker game- The post-Thanksgiving sessions of High Stakes Feud continued last week with Daniel Negreanu and Doug Polk playing three sessions. Following an estimated 7,467 hands in total, Polk still holds a lead of $518,409.44 following Negreanu booking three small wins.
- High-stakes poker is far from dead, as fans got a heaping helping of action in September, primarily on GGPoker. Read about the biggest and best hands here.
- Top poker hands from High Stakes Poker Season 2 featuring Gus Hansen, Daniel Negreanu, Mike Matusow, Eli Elezra, Erick Lindgren, Todd Brunson, and many.
The Democratic failure to win a majority in the U.S. Senate on Nov. 3 leaves the country and Joe Biden in a precarious position and the voters of Georgia in the driver's seat.
Biden will face the challenges of the escalating COVID-19 pandemic, the shattered economy and the budget deficit with one hand tied behind his back. The GOP has a two-seat edge in the Senate and unless both Democratic candidates in the Georgia runoff elections win on Jan. 5, Biden will have trouble getting a ham sandwich through the Senate. Otherwise, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) will reign supreme.
The auguries for cooperation between Biden and McConnell have not been auspicious. The two men who served together in the Senate have not spoken since Election Day. The Senate majority leader has been resistant to efforts by House Democrats to pass new pandemic assistance legislation that would provide much needed financial assistance to unemployed Americans, hard pressed state and local governments and first responders on the frontlines of fighting the raging COVID-19 pandemic.
The best hope for aggressive action against the ferocious forces that threaten the U.S. are Democratic victories in the two Senate elections in Georgia.
The Georgia Senate runoff campaign is a game of high stakes poker. The people of the state hold the fate of the rest of the nation in their hands. If Democrats win both races to take control of the Senate with the tie-breaking vote of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, it will be an auspicious time to dust off Winston Churchill's comment on the brave Royal Air Force pilots who won the Battle of Britain against Hitler's Luftwaffe. Churchill honored them when he said, 'Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.'
Voters in Kentucky failed to ditch Mitch, but the people of Georgia still have a chance to depose McConnell from his perch as Senate majority leader. The most impressive part of Biden's successful national campaign for president was his victory in Georgia, the old confederacy. The big question is whether Democrats can build upon Biden's success there and take the two Senate seats still in play in the Peachtree State.
Video: Georgia Senate debates make headlines ahead of runoff (CBS News)
Georgia, deep in the heart of Dixie, has become a purple state. In the last two cycles, races have been tight as a tick on a hound dog. On Election Day, Biden won by 0.2 percent and Sen. David Perdue (R) beat the Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff by only 1.8 percent. In 2018, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp edged out his Democratic opponent Stacey Abrams by a mere 1.4 percent.
The virtual contestants there are Biden and McConnell, but the actual contestants are the four candidates. The candidates for the full six-year term are the Republican incumbent Perdue and his Democratic challenger, former congressional candidate Ossoff. The combatants in the race to fill the remaining two years of former Sen. Johnny Isakson's (R) term are Kelly Loeffler, who was appointed to the Senate by Gov. Kemp, and the Democratic challenger Raphael Warnock, the African American pastor at the Ebenezer Baptist Church where civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. once preached.
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Polls shows that both races are tight. But there are caveats to the polling in the state. Many polls in 2020 races significantly underestimated GOP votes so the two Republicans might have an advantage. These races are both special runoff elections with no presidential contest on the ballot so it's tricky for pollsters to gauge turnout.
Biden's narrow victory in Georgia is a template for victories for the two Democrats. The Democratic presidential stand bearer fared poorly with white voters, but he won overwhelming support from non-white voters who made up four-tenths of the electorate. Biden lost rural Georgia, but he won big in urban areas like metro Atlanta and almost broke even with Trump in the state's suburbs.
The two Senate races have been unrelentingly negative. Democrats have hammered both wealthy Republicans for using inside information gleaned from their Senate positions to make profitable stock trades. Republicans have tried to brand the Democrats as socialists and radicals. The Democratic candidates must hope that the African American turnout doesn't drop without a presidential race on the ballot.
The ace in the Democratic deck is Abrams who came close to beating Kemp in the 2018 gubernatorial contest. The indefatigable Abrams has worked tirelessly in recent years to register and rally new voters and her efforts paid off in Biden's win. She plans on running against Kemp again in 2022 and victories by Warnock and Ossoff would be a big boost to her campaign and make her into a national political powerhouse.
While Democrats are unified in their pursuit of victory in Georgia, Trump has created division in the Republican ranks. He has criticized Kemp for failing to overturn Biden's victory there and the two GOP candidates must contend with die hard Trump supporters who want Republicans to boycott the runoff because of alleged election rigging.
The national stakes of the runoff races in Georgia were evident over the weekend. Former President Barack Obama did a virtual campaign rally with Warnock and Ossoff on Friday. Saturday, Trump campaigned with the two Republican senators even though the president was as focused on his own electoral misfortunes as the electoral hopes of Perdue and Loeffler. If Democrats win both races, the big loser will be McConnell. If Republicans win either of the two races, Biden will be on the hot seat.
Brad Bannon is a Democratic pollster and CEO of Bannon Communications Research. He is the host of the podcast Deadline D.C. with @BradBannon and the Progressive Voices network.
High Stakes Poker was the most iconic poker TV show of all time, and after more than nine years of it being off the air, it is returning to PokerGO with Season 8 episodes beginning on Wednesday, December 16.
Debuting in 2006 on the Game Show Network, High Stakes Poker took the poker world by storm, providing some of the most entertaining high stakes cash game hands played by some of the icons of the game. Previous filming locations included the Golden Nugget, The Palms, South Point Casino, and the Bellagio, but Season 8 will take place solely in the PokerGO Studio at ARIA Resort & Casino.
Use code “HSP2020” for $10 off a PokerGO subscription now!
With COVID-19 completely upending the poker landscape in 2020, PokerGO recently took some strides forward to provide new content. This includes the recent completion of High Stakes Duel between Phil Hellmuth and Antonio Esfandiari, along with the recently announced High Stakes Feud between Daniel Negreanu and Doug Polk which begins next Wednesday, November 4.
However, with two players being vastly different to a full table, PokerGO had to implement several conditions for both players and production staff. All players undergo rapid testing early in the day, and when their results are negative, they are allowed to return to the PokerGO Studio to participate in that night’s game. Season 8 of High Stakes Poker will see stakes of $200/$400 and $400/$800 and utilize the big blind ante format.
High Stakes Poker Executive Producer and Poker Hall of Fame member Mori Eskandani is the driving force behind many of the original programming and shows on PokerGO that includes Poker After Dark and the returning High Stakes Poker. High Stakes Poker is often regarded as the most iconic poker show of all time, and Eskandani agrees wholeheartedly.
“It is in a way because it introduced the cash form of poker, so it paved the road for all these other cash games. We’re obviously lucky enough to have so many different characters when we started. It showed the kitchen table poker that people are used to but in a much higher buy-in format. It almost looked fake sometimes. I would always have people asking me, ‘is this for real?’ and I would have to say ‘yeah they were playing for real money.'”
High Stakes Poker has always been incredibly well-received by both diehard poker fans and people that stumble across the show for the first time. The insane amounts of money on the line and the stacks of cash filling the table draws attention from all corners.
“The main reason they like High Stakes Poker is the interaction between the players. It’s the street game. You never watch High Stakes Poker and have the commentators talk about if this was the right move for some GTO, or for some solvers out there. This was the right move for the street version of somebody reading somebody, or somebody putting a move on someone, faking them out, getting paid, or making a big bluff. All the stuff that makes poker what it is, lives on High Stakes Poker.”
With seven seasons of High Stakes Poker under his belt, Eskandani has a library full of memories related to the show.
“I have many memories, and you can ask me that question now and I’ll have one answer, and next week it will be a different answer. The one answer that comes to my mind right away would be the one memory of Jamie Gold and Sammy Farha playing a hand that was aces versus kings. The whole table after 30 seconds knew exactly what those two hands were per their conversation – except those two. And it went on for 14 or 15 minutes.”
“Outside of the table related to High Stakes Poker, it was when Tom Dwan left his backpack full of $1 million in cash and chips behind a dumpster at the back of Golden Nugget. He and I ran from the valet through the ballroom and into the back of the Golden Nugget and it was sitting there. It was literally sitting there. This backpack, no one had touched it, no one had picked it up. It was a million dollars in cash and chips. I’m not making this up.”
Ever since High Stakes Poker left TV back in 2011, there was always hope that it would return. The players may change, the stakes may be different, and the location may be new, but the show’s nostalgia keeps everyone wanting it back.
“That’s something we’ve been hoping to do every year. It was more like ‘when is it coming back?’ and ‘why are we not doing High Stakes Poker?’”
Everyone that watched the original High Stakes Poker will remember the iconic suite the cash game played out in. The spacious suite with lavish surroundings and couches for the players to relax in – it all embodied what High Stakes Poker was. The PokerGO Studio is very versatile with esports and UFC shows being filmed when it isn’t being used for poker tournaments or shows. However, Eskandani and his team went above and beyond to make this new High Stakes Poker set stand out.
“We wanted it to stay close. Fidelity is important to us with what it was in the past. The same thing with Poker After Dark. When you see Poker After Dark you’re going to see a bar, you’re going to have someone sitting at the bar, it’s going to look similar. The main idea is the same, but the look is a little different. It’s still the penthouse suite.”
Use code “HSP2020” for $10 off a PokerGO subscription now!
With the rumor of High Stakes Poker returning circulating, fans instantly began questioning the potential line-ups and whether the new season would live up to the past seasons’ hype.
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“I was very skeptical because a lot of our old school players either were not available, or no longer play, or in some really sad situations are not even with us. Losing people like Sammy Farha, not having Doyle [Brunson] be here because he’s not feeling so well right now, obviously takes away from the old look of the show. With COVID going round, many of the people are not willing to leave their homes until they are vaccinated like Eli Elezra.”
However, at the end of the day, it’s still High Stakes Poker. Incredible action, absurd pots, and a great mix of players that everyone will enjoy watching.
“I’m pleasantly surprised with what is happening. I think it’s the game, just the name of the game, ‘High Stakes Poker’ that brings the best of people out here. The game that we had last night was probably in the top five of any High Stakes Poker that we’ve done. Absolutely never a dull moment, and the conversation was exactly what you wanted.”
The early sign is that Season 8 of High Stakes Poker is not just going to meet the expectations that many have assigned to it – but it may easily eclipse some of the past seasons!
Beginning Wednesday, December 16, PokerGO will be airing a new season of High Stakes Poker every week. High stakes. Incredible line-ups. What more could you ask for?
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