Hi, I watched some episodes from Season 3 of High Stakes poker the other day and I really have to say this is my favorite pokershow. You don’t have to watch to all those donkeys you see in the WSOP, the plays are really outstanding most of the time and of course there are the brilliant comments from Mister Gabe Kaplan.

Now let’s watch two very interesting hands from the last episode of the season:

The first hand begins at about 3′. The French cash game player David Benyamine mixes things up by raising with J2 off and gets called by Antonio ‘the Magician’ Esfandiari with low suited connectors. Benyamine makes a standard continuation bet when he hits middle pair and then Antonio makes an interesting play: he just calls with 4 high and no single draw, just because he believes he can take this pot with some action on the next betting round. Bad news for Antonio is the fact Benyamine hits two pair on the turn and his hand is quiete disguised. Antonio continues with his plan anyway and gets reraised by Benyamine. Esfandiari is really dragged into this pot now and fires one more bullet (!) which is called by Benyamine after some consideration: he mixed his play up and hit the cards, but he isn’t sure he’s in best shape there, making this a 237k pot. Antonio gives up the hand on the river after the check in the dark from Benyamine and sees his advanced play didn’t get rewarded.

The second hand is some kind of a similar play by Brian Townsend, only this time it succeeds . The hand starts around 24′ and it’s our 1 million dollar man “Yukon” Brad Booth who raises it up preflop with Q9. Townsend calls in the small blind with A4 suited and also Patrick Antonius is in. Booth bets the flop after hitting Queens and Sixes and Townsend also just calls, planning a move on the turn. Indeed, Townsend raises Booth’s bet there, perfectly representing he has a 6, sitting in the small blind. Great play, great show .

Tags: 237k pot, antonio esfandiari, brian townsend, david benyamine, fire on the turn, gabe kaplan, high stakes poker, representing small cards, season 3, yukon brad booth

This entry was posted on zondag, april 12th, 2009 at 15:15 and is filed under Poker on TV. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.