Jeff Haney describes a televised poker game in which quads beat out 6s over 5s to claim a $575,700 pot

Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2006 | 7:27 a.m.

The second season of "High Stakes Poker," the TV show that chronicles a no-limit cash game, will be remembered for a hand that generated the biggest pot so far in the popular series.

At more than $500,000, the pot contested by poker pros Gus Hansen and Daniel Negreanu was likely the largest single cash-game hand ever captured on tape. Unlike most poker TV shows, "High Stakes" portrays a cash game in which players mix it up with their own money, rather than a tournament.

The danger of no-limit poker - and the intrigue, for the poker fans and high-stakes pros who swear by the program - is that you can lose your entire stake at once, or a big chunk of it, as Negreanu was painfully reminded when his full house was cracked by Hansen's "quads," or four of a kind.

The Season 2 finale of "High Stakes Poker" aired Monday night on GSN (Cox Cable channel 344) and will be replayed at 10 p.m. Friday. The monster pot took place in episode 11, first shown last month. It can be caught in reruns or, for the computer-savvy, a clip of it can be tracked down on the Internet.

Pots of more than a half million dollars are rarely contested in Las Vegas, as even the largest cash games on the Strip often "cap" the size of the pots so no one player can lose too much money on one hand. There's no cap in the GSN "High Stakes" no-limit Texas hold 'em game.

Here's the blow by blow of the showdown, which took place on the 114th hand dealt during the second of two days of taping on the "High Stakes" set at the Palms:

With the higher set, Negreanu was a 94 percent favorite to win the hand to Hansen's 4 percent (the possibility of a split pot accounted for the remaining 2 percent).

Hansen, a native of Copenhagen, Denmark, says he learned English by listening to Pink Floyd albums. He certainly caught "One of My Turns," to borrow the title of an old number from "The Wall." It was the five of spades, giving him four of a kind and making Negreanu a full house.

Hansen checked his quads and Negreanu bet $65,000. Hansen called the $65,000 and added an all-in bet for $167,000, bringing the pot to $408,700. Negreanu called Hansen's $167,000 all-in bet, and Hansen's four of a kind gave him a pot of $575,700.

Another highlight from Season 2 generated more laughs than gasps. It came when Mike Matusow's opponents chipped in to pay him $4,000 to continue playing when Matusow was tired and wanted to go home. Matusow accepted the "bribe" but ended up losing his $100,000 buy-in.

The third season of "High Stakes Poker," featuring some newcomers as well as stalwarts from the first two go-rounds, is scheduled to be taped next month in Las Vegas at a site to be determined and to debut on GSN in January.