High Stakes Poker Season 6 Premiere Sees Quick Hellmuth Exit

Kara Scott is the newest addition to High Stakes Poker.

Poker fans got a Valentine’s love letter from GSN last night in the form of the Season 6 premiere of High Stakes Poker.

The production style of the new season has changed a bit from the past. The first noticeable thing is a glitzy new intro, followed by an opening but from Gabe Kaplan without his former co-host A.J. Benza. He introduced the show’s new addition, Kara Scott, for a segment called “30 Seconds With Kara Scott,” where she asked the players to describe Phil Hellmuth in ten words or less. She also interviewed players about some of the bigger hands after the fact, which could end up being interesting, but so far Scott, who’s as smart as she is attractive, seems underused. Kaplan’s commentary definitely suffered from not having Benza on board, but he still managed a few zingers when he wasn’t chastising the players in his commentary for their table talk about ongoing hands. 

So far as the poker goes, eight players - Antonio Esfandiari, Phil Ivey, Andreas Hoivold, Gus Hansen, Dario Minieri, Tom Dwan, Daniel Negreanu, and Phil Hellmuth - began the new season, each of them having ponied up $200,000 for a seat at the table. All of them appeared eager to get involved in the action, including the normally tight Hellmuth. But after a series of big-ace starting hands didn’t pan out for him in the early going he began to tilt, painting a target on his forehead for everyone else.

Always known as a much better tournament than cash player, Hellmuth appeared to be completely out of his element against some of the highest rollers in poker. When his every word drew laughter from the other players, the wheels began to come off. That got him in trouble with a king-high flush agaisnt Esfandiari’s nut flush, and then he found a way to get the last $82,300 of his money in the middle with a slim 14% chance to win against Ivey. Rather than reload, Hellmuth got up and quietly walked away, prompting Kaplan to observe that he was the first player in the show’s history to leave after firing only a single bullet. But with the way he was tilting, living to fight another day without dropping another $200,000 was probably the best choice.

The Poker Brat’s downhill slide begins at the 1:02 mark in this High Stakes Poker video, and it continues at the 4:38 mark. Hellmuth meltdown aficionados may be disappointed that there’s no classic rant, but hey, this isn’t a $1,500 donkament and these aren’t satellite qualifiers.