A lively mix of players on poker show, all big bettors

By Jeff Haney

Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2008 | 2 a.m.

When the fifth season of “High Stakes Poker” begins on cable channel GSN, a debut tentatively scheduled for March 1, poker fans will again see all of the signature fixtures that have made the show so popular.

It will again feature poker’s most recognizable live-game players, stalwarts such as Doyle Brunson and Phil Hellmuth.

It will also include the czars of Internet poker’s “nosebleed” stakes who have generated huge followings under their online screen handles, such as Tom Dwan (“durrrr”) and Ilari Sahamies (“Ziigmund.”)

Don’t forget the bundled $50,000 bricks of U.S. currency — in play along with high-denomination poker chips — that give the show extra flair, or the verbal jousting that regularly occurs to accompany monster-size pots.

What viewers won’t see, though, is poker pro Phil Laak polishing off a plate of sushi during a break in the action as he holds forth on a play scheduled to open on London’s West End in the spring — and, believe it or not, how it relates to his view of the contemporary poker scene.

The production, “Grasses of a Thousand Colours,” will be directed by Andre Gregory and was written by his longtime collaborator Wallace Shawn, the accomplished actor and playwright.

Or, as Laak put it: “You remember the guy in ‘The Princess Bride’ who goes, ‘Inconceivable!’ ”

The play will keep Laak’s girlfriend, Jennifer Tilly, busy in London, Laak said, during a period that overlaps the World Poker Tour Championship, a $25,000-entry tournament at the Bellagio that Laak has circled on his calendar.

“I can’t wait to see the play, but it looks like Jennifer and I won’t be in the same town for a while,” Laak said on the “High Stakes Poker” set at the Golden Nugget this past weekend. “I would never miss the 25K event at the Bellagio.”

Laak also considers any taping of “High Stakes Poker” one of the few “must-play” events on the poker circuit, having competed in every season but the first.

The show, which portrays a high-stakes cash poker game rather than a tournament, made its debut on GSN (Cox cable channel 344) in January 2006 after a taping at the Golden Nugget in November 2005. Subsequent seasons were taped at the Palms and at the South Point (twice).

As in previous seasons, about 27 hours of play from the weekend will be divided into a series of hourlong episodes.

“It’s such a ‘sick’ honor to be invited to this thing,” Laak said. “To poker’s credit, there are so many tournaments with really cool structures now that you don’t have to travel too much if you don’t want to. For me, I’ve been sticking mostly to the West Coast or London, and that’s enough to keep me busy.

“You can’t get a game like this too often.”

Players are required to sit down at the table with at least $200,000, although some have opted to bring as much as $1 million to the “High Stakes” game.

The appeal of the show is easy to explain, Laak said: All poker fans know how to play no-limit Texas hold ’em, and many believe they have what it takes (with the exception of a ready supply of bricks of $100 bills, perhaps) to beat the best at their own game.

“This is phenomenal for poker,” Laak said. “You might see some funny stuff happening in the hands, stuff that looks ‘sick’ on TV, but it actually has game theory behind it, which the average viewer might miss out on. So an average viewer might think, ‘Oh, I could do that.’ You know, they would have called the bet in that spot.”

Laak is far from the only player who places a premium on making it to “High Stakes Poker,” according to Kevin Belinkoff, a consultant on the show who has been involved since its creation.

The roster of players varies somewhat by season, but it’s safe to say there are more players willing to compete than spots in the game, Belinkoff said.

“We get requests from everywhere,” Belinkoff said. “We try to get a nice mix of personalities and players of different ages and levels of experience that tell the story of what’s going on.

“If you’re a brash, obnoxious guy, we’ll find a place for you. But we might not put you with some other brash, obnoxious guys if we think that would blow up the table. Some guys are quiet, and there’s a place for them, too.”

Although the heart of the order consists of high-stakes professional poker players, the show’s executives round out the lineup with a selection of personalities from the entertainment industry.

A poker subculture thrives in Hollywood circles, said Sam Simon, the acclaimed TV producer who was competing on “High Stakes Poker” for the first time this weekend.

Simon, known for his work on “The Simpsons,” “Taxi” and “Cheers,” calls himself a recreational poker player and participates in a $5 and $10 no-limit hold ’em home game a couple of times a week.

Among his peers in show business, Simon gave high marks to Tobey Maguire and Hank Azaria for poker acumen.

“There are a few legendary home games in Hollywood, and the poker boom after Chris Moneymaker won the World Series of Poker (in 2003) reverberated in Hollywood, too,” Simon said. “Then, you have people with a lot of money and a lot of time, so you’ve got some big games that go in Hollywood.

“I think it’s probably the same as it is all over America. It’s just that some of these guys happen to have bigger bankrolls.”