Phil Hellmuth Blasted Out The Water In High Stakes Poker Season 6

The much anticipated High Stakes Poker Season 6 got underway Sunday evening amid an air of expectation surrounding the show’s new format, with co-host A.J. Benza dropped and the new co-host Kara Scott interviewing the players at ground level.
Further excitement was created by the interesting blend of poker talents arranged to kick-off the show, which included Phil Hellmuth, Phil Ivey, Andreas Hoivold, Daniel Negreanu, Gus Hansen, Tom Dwan, Antonio Esfandiari and Dario Minieri.
All the players bought in for $200,000 at the $400/$800/$200 game, except for Tom Dwan and Phil Ivey, who obviously enjoy the deep stack approach and bought in for $500k a piece.
 
One feature of recent cash games shown on TV featuring Phil Hellmuth and Daniel Negreanu is Negreanu’s insistence that Hellmuth, like himself, was not a cash game specialist and that he was willing to take on all sorts of bets that Hellmuth would lose at these games. Negreanu’s observation would prove all too prophetic in episode 1 of the new series, as Hellmuth proceeded to implode.
Hellmuth started well enough but, after missing with some big-ace starting hands, he began to get frustrated which was compounded by the other player’s revelling in their ‘put Hellmuth on tilt’ pursuits.
Firstly, Hellmuth lost $40,000 pre-flop with A-J after he folded to Ivey’s all-in push with pocket queens. Next, Hellmuth ran into some bad luck when he hit a K high flush only to lose the 105k pot to Antonio Esfandiari’s nut high flush. Finally, Hellmuth got his last $82,300 in with just a 14% chance to win against Ivey.
Hellmuth then wisely walked away from the show $200k down and the big loser on the night, while Ivey was the big winner showing a $330k profit.
While the action certainly got off to an explosive start, fans are still somewhat undecided as to the shows new format. Still early days, Kara Scott’s new role has been generally well received by the viewers although some fans are reported to be missing the Kaplan/Benza banter which became a regular attraction of the show.