The new High Stakes Poker

For Poker Television, cash games are way better than Sit and Go's. I often fast forward through Poker After Dark regular games, especially if the participants aren't particularly entertaining. But if it's a cash game, I'm glued.So, needless to say, I LOVED High Stakes Poker. The table dynamics were always interesting and the chatter between Gabe Kaplan and A.J. Benza was entertaining. Than last season, they drop A.J. and let Gabe work solo. I really enjoy Gabe's humor and his experience playing poker, really added to the commentary. However, his humor needs the straight man. Without A.J. almost all his jokes fell flat.Than I find out that Gabe is gone and in comes Norm McDonald. Again, another funny comedian, but now they've gotten rid of any kind of high level poker commentary. I was expecting more of Season 6, without any decent poker knowledge. I was only half right.Norm McDonald, wearing more make-up than the winner on a Toddlers & Tiara's show, comes of well with his comedy. It doesn't feel forced, and while not laugh out loud hilarious, it's humorous enough to get a chuckle, and not miss any of the poker action. It works well. The biggest issue, is as I stated, no good poker commentary. He doesn't really add any real insight into what the players may be thinking based on actions.On a side note, and not really anything to do with this season specifically, but on my TiVo, it lists EACH airing as a new episode. So starting at 7pm on Saturday, my TiVo recording about 6 hours of HSP. There's only one new episode in there somewhere, and if I have to stop the actual new one, it takes a few minutes to find the next recording of it.So, while it's better than Season 6, and entertaining in it's own right, High Stakes Poker Season 7 goes to the bottom of my cash game poker watching. I'll wawtch it each week, but I'll be waiting with anticipation for the next PAD Cash Game. Or for PokerStars, The Big Game to come to my market.

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