A lively mix of players on 'High Stakes Poker,' all big bettors

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.

Another Vegas gaming myth: Bizarre play cost books much less than outside media reported

Even in Las Vegas, where people should know better, the level of gambling acumen among the public can be disturbingly low. In the national media, it can be embarrassingly, off-the-charts low.

I literally was right around Barstow on the edge of the desert, so my first thought was some sort of Hunter Thompson-style alternate reality had set in.

Driving back to Las Vegas from L.A. last month on a dark interstate, the part where you start to see billboards for that Mad Greek place, I was between CDs on the audio book I was playing (Steve Martin’s “Born Standing Up”) and so forced to listen to some high-desert classic rock station for a moment.

Historic feat provides target for Pacquiao

Boxing historians refer to it as the sport’s most extraordinary achievement.

In a span of 10 months, from October 1937 through August 1938, Henry Armstrong won world championship fights at featherweight, welterweight and lightweight — in that order.

He remains the only boxer in history to have held three world titles simultaneously.

No one will equal Armstrong’s accomplishment, if only because the rules of boxing no longer allow fighters to hold belts in more than one division at a time.

This week at the MGM Grand, however, four months after the 70th anniversary of Armstrong’s feat, Manny Pacquiao has an opportunity to come close.