High Stakes Poker Gabe Kaplan

admin 3/31/2022

Gabriel Weston Kaplan (born March 31, 1945) is an American comedian, actor, and professional poker player. He played the eponymous teacher in the 1970s sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter. He later became a professional poker player and a commentator for the series High Stakes Poker on GSN.
Gabe Kaplan is an actor, comedian and poker player of American nationality who has been known particularly for being the host of the shows like Welcome Back Kotter and High Stakes Poker. Gabe has appeared in several movies and TV series including Tulips, Groucho, Jack the Dog and The Grand.

When it aired on the Game Show Network (GSN) from 2006-11, High Stakes Poker cemented its legacy as one of the most popular poker shows ever made through its 98-episode run. Now, after a near-decade hiatus, the show is set to return this Wednesday, Dec. 16 at 8 p.m. ET on PokerGO.

Gabe Kaplan and AJ Benza hosting season 2 of High Stakes Poker The long-awaited eighth season of the highly popular cash game show High Stakes Poker is set to debut on Wednesday, Dec. Poker Go announced today the hit series “High Stakes Poker” will be returning for it’s 8th season and hosted by Gabe Kaplan, featuring Phil Ivy, Tom Dwan and more Season 8 of “High Stakes Poker” begins on December 16 with new weekly episodes, airing exclusively on PokerGO.

Not only is the show, which recorded earlier this year at PokerGO Studio at ARIA Resort & Casino, once again helmed by the original producer and Poker Hall of Famer Mori Eskandani, news broke earlier this week that the show’s original hosts Gabe Kaplan and AJ Benza would return for commentary duties. New episodes are slated to air every Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET.

A.J. Benza & @GabeKaplan return to High Stakes Poker as hosts of the ALL NEW Season 8!

— PokerGO (@PokerGO)

“It’s been nine years since new episodes of the legendary ‘High Stakes Poker’ series have been created,” Eskandani told TheWrap in their mainstream preview of the show. “With this show being such a favorite among fans, it was important to us to capture the exhilarating spirit of the game in a way that makes it come to life through each viewer’s screen. When our audience tunes in, we want them to feel the energy of each player in the game, and we’ve worked faithfully to make that happen.”

The cash games will be played either $200/$400 or $400/$800 no-limit hold’em with a big blind ante in play.

For the first episode of Season 8, the game will be 400/$800 NLH with a minimum buy-in of $200,000. The lineup includes Tom Dwan, Jean-Robert Bellande, Rick Salomon, Nick Petrangelo, Brandon Steven, former MLB pitcher Michael Schwimer, and Bryn Kenney, who is one of a few poker pros making their High Stakes Poker debut.

Here's a look at those who will be playing in Season 8 as revealed by the trailer:

Phil Ivey
Tom Dwan
Jean-Robert Bellande
Bryn Kenney
Rick Salomon
Chamath Palihapitiya
Brandon Steven
Nick Petrangelo
Phil Hellmuth
Doug Polk
Michael Schwimer
Brandon Adams
James Bord
Lazaro Hernandez
Damien LeForbes
Jake Daniels
Lynne Ji

Remember, the show is only available to PokerGO subscribers. If you’re not currently subscribed, you can get a monthly subscription for $14.99, a three-month plan for $29.99, and an annual subscription for $99.99.

_{*Images courtesy of PokerGO.}

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PokerGOTom DwanJean Robert BellandeGabe KaplanHigh Stakes PokerPoker on TV
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Tom DwanGabe Kaplan

PokerNews Staff

There have been some great poker shows on television. Poker After Dark was a classic, a great enough format it has since been revived on PokerGO. The NBC Heads-Up shows were always good for some interesting confrontations, partypoker's The Big Game has delivered endless classics, and a plethora of live streams have left poker fans with an almost endless library of poker content to watch.

But there's no greater poker show than High Stakes Poker, many poker fans believe. The cash game television show premiered on January 16th, 2006 and ran for seven seasons, broadcasting for the last time May 21, 2011.

The show, which ran on GSN in the United States and found its way to poker fans all over the world, had AJ Benza and Gabe Kaplan in the commentary booth for the first five seasons before Kaplan did a solo job commentating in season six. In the final season, Kaplan was replaced by Norm Macdonald. Kara Scott conducted interviews with the players from the floor in the last two seasons.

While not new to the show, PokerStars signed on as the official sponsor in season seven, which resulted in a boycott from the Full Tilt Poker-sponsored players. The final season was not as popular as previous seasons but still made for some interesting poker tv.

While High Stakes Episodes appeared on YouTube before on numerous occasions, they usually received GSN takedown requests within days of publishing. Just last March, Doug Polk was forced to take down his analysis videos of High Stakes Poker. Some months before the takedown request, in January of this year, GSN had uploaded all the episodes to its official YouTube channel, but they were removed not much later. Now, last August, they reappeared online, now uploaded to a YouTube Channel simply called High Stakes Poker. They have since racked up hundreds of thousands of views and are all uploaded in great quality. The most popular episode is Season 6 - Episode 1 (featuring Hellmuth versus Esfandiari in flush-over-flush and Hellmuth versus Ivey in flush-over-flush) with 217,000 views. Season 4 - Episode 3 is the least popular with just 7,400 views.

Over in the PokerNews Strategy Section, we published a review of High Stakes Poker Season 1 - Episode 1 highlighting some of the strategic concepts of the first installment.

High Stakes Poker Season 1

Casino:	Golden Nugget
Episodes:	13
Different players:	18

High Stakes Poker Season 1 Players

Amir Nasseri	Daniel Negreanu	Jennifer Harman	Sammy Farha
Antonio Esfandiari	Doyle Brunson	Jerry Buss	Shawn Sheikhan
Barry Greenstein	Eli Elezra	Johnny Chan	Ted Forrest
Bob Stupak	Fred Chamanara	Mimi Tran	Todd Brunson
Daniel Alaei	Freddy Deeb	Phil Hellmuth

High Stakes Poker Season 2

High Stakes Poker Season 2 Players

Amnon Filippi	Daniel Negreanu	Gus Hansen	Phil Laak
Antonio Esfandiari	David Grey	Jennifer Harman	Sammy Farha
Barry Greenstein	Doyle Brunson	John Juanda	Shawn Sheikhan
Brad Booth	Eli Elezra	Michael Mizrachi	Ted Forrest
Cory Zeidman	Erick Lindgren	Mike Matusow	Todd Brunson
Daniel Alaei	Fred Chamanara	Minh Ly

High Stakes Poker Season 3

High Stakes Poker Season 3 Players

Antonio Esfandiari	Dan Shak	Erick Lindgren	Paul Wasicka
Barry Greenstein	Daniel Alaei	Gabe Kaplan	Phil Ivey
Bill Chen	Daniel Negreanu	Ilya Trincher	Phil Laak
Brad Booth	David Benyamine	Jamie Gold	Sammy Farha
Brian Townsend	David Williams	Jennifer Harman	Shawn Sheikhan
Chris Ferguson	Doyle Brunson	John D'Agostino	Todd Brunson
Dan Harmetz	Eli Elezra	Patrik Antonius	Victor Ramdin

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