On Monday, GSN announced that Norm MacDonald will replace Gabe Kaplan as the host of High Stakes Poker for its seventh season. MacDonald, a Canadian actor, writer, and stand-up comic known best for his five seasons on SNL, is an avid poker player. He placed 20th out of 827 contenders in the 2007 World Series of Poker $3,000 No Limit Texas Hold ‘em event, winning $14,608. MacDonald is a regular participant at the WSOP Main Event.
Funnyman MacDonald will be taking over from longtime host Gabe Kaplan. Kaplan, a highly successful poker player, is known for his poker knowledge and ability to deconstruct hands for viewers. While MacDonald may not possess the same analytical aptitude, he will bring humor and an edge to the show’s commentary, in a move by GSN to appeal to a broader audience.
The player lineup will also see a shift. The show will feature an appearance of Johnny Chan, only his second on the show, alongside returning greats Doyle Brunson, Daniel Negreanu, and Phil Laak. Due to sponsorship conflicts, notable absences will include Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan, and Patrik Antonius.
High Stakes Poker Season Seven will have a $200k minimum buy-in, $500k maximum buy-in, with blinds remaining at $400/$800 and $100 antes. GSN stated in their press release that, “Straddles were frequent and often multiple. Several players were felted, so rebuys and add-ons were prevalent.” Season Seven will premier on February 26.
The filming of Season 7 of GSN’s High Stakes Poker has begun. This season is sure to bring more exciting cash game action as familiar and new faces join the cast of players this season.
High Stakes Poker is GSN’s wildly popular cash-game crypto gambling show. The show, now sponsored by PokerStars is in its seventh season and is as popular as ever. Usually filmed at The Golden Nugget in downtown Las Vegas, this season is being filmed at The Bellagio on the Las Vegas Strip. Fans of the show love it because of the crazy action the show has, including a $919,000 pot between Tom Dwan and Barry Greenstein.
While an official list of this season’s players has not been released, fans of the show are finding other ways to identify who will be surrounding the felt this season. Andrew “good2cu” Robl’s twitter read “On set for high stakes poker. Going to be quite a season!” Haralabos “Haralabob” Voulgaris made a twitter post yesterday stating “On my way to Las Vegas to play in GSN’s High Stakes Poker. Haven’t played live poker since July, should be fun.” Others with twitter posts about playing on the show were: Barry Greenstein, WSOP 2010 Main Event winner Jonathan Duhamel, Doyle Brunson, Antonio Esfandiari, Phil Laak, Jason Mercier and Phil Galfond, who’s twitter post simply said “HSP!”
As we reported earlier, the most noticeable names missing from the list are Tom Dwan, Phil Ivey and other Team Full Tilt members. Barry Greenstein, a PokerStars Team Pro member, reported
