Despite having success in its first five seasons, the super-popular poker show High Stakes Poker decided to make a big change by dropping the witty A.J. Benza from the commentator booth and replacing him with the sultry Kara Scott. When the move was made, people immediately started criticizing the Game Show Network producers who made the decision, and some online poker rooms even considered pulling their advertising.

Well it’s a good thing those Internet poker rooms didn’t make a hasty decision because High Stakes Poker’s ratings are actually up in Season 6. Amazingly they have climbed above Season 5′s target audience of ages 18 to 49 tuning in nearly 30 percent more! The poker sites that like to advertise their rakeback deals and services can be very happy with the growing popularity of Season 6.

The VP of Programming and Development at GSN, David Schiff, actually believes the improved ratings are a result of the participants themselves as he stated, “”We’re very gratified to see this season of High Stakes Poker performing so well among these important demographic groups, and we can attribute it to an especially strong player line-up this season. We have some of the biggest names in poker this season, including more international players, and the viewers are clearly responding to the outstanding game play.”

Some of the players Schiff is talking about include Patrik Antonius, Antonio Esfandiari, Barry Greenstein, David Benyamine, Doyle Brunson, Phil Hellmuth, Phil Ivey, Mike Matusow, Tom Dwan, Eli Elezra, and Daniel Negreanu.

Getting back to the whole announcer switch, fans of the older format are still complaining that the chemistry between A.J. Benza and Gabe Kaplan is missing from the show. They don’t think that Kara Scott works as well with Gabe Kaplan in the booth. It’s hard though to disagree with the switch when the show has attracted nearly 30 percent more of the target audience they were aiming for.

If you don’t have time to join in with the debate and just want to enjoy a game of Internet Poker then why not take a look at Absolute Poker or perhaps Party Poker.