High Stakes Poker returns once again

Get out the bricks of cash, because High Stakes Poker is returning for another season on GSN.

The popular poker TV program has been rumored to be canceled several times already but, like the players taking part on the show, it just keeps coming back for more.

The fifth season of HSP will be shot Dec. 19-21 at the Golden Nugget Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. This year the cash game will feature a buy-in of $200,000, which means at least one poker player could be in for a very green Christmas. This marks the first time HSP has returned to the Golden Nugget since its first season.

HSP has been both a commercial and critical success, garnering some of the highest ratings for a show on GSN, and many poker experts consider it the best poker show on TV thanks to its cash-game format with players putting their own money on the line.

In previous seasons players like Daniel Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth, Doyle Brunson, Jennifer Harman, Jamie Gold, Phil Laak and many more have all taken part in the game.

Harry Orenstein, one of the executive producers of HSP, mentioned he was looking forward to the upcoming season.

"High Stakes Poker [...] has become a must-see on GSN for poker players and poker fans all over the world," he said. "We are happy to bring back the top amateurs and professionals risking hundreds of thousands of their own money in the new season."

There have been several memorable hands in the span of the show, including Gus Hansen winning a $575,700 pot off Negreanu when Hansen turned quad fives to Negreanu's full house. In Season 2 Brad Booth pulled off one of the boldest bluffs in history, getting Phil Ivey to let go of pocket kings while he was holding a meager 4-2.

Finally, in Season 4, the largest hand ever played on the show occurred when Patrik Antonius went all-in with a pair of nines on the flop and Sammy Farha called with a flush draw.

The pot was worth $998,800 and the players agreed to run the turn and the river four times. Antonius won three of the four runs to take three-fourths of the pot.

Fans of the show have been waiting for new episodes for quite some time now as the fourth season of HSP finished airing on Dec. 17, 2007.

There was no word on who is confirmed to play in Season 5, or even on whether popular hosts Gabe Kaplan and A.J. Benza would be returning.

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