New School and Old School Collide on Poker After Dark

The battle of New School and Old School is always a trendy storyline in poker and that generation gap was tackled in the “Nets vs. Vets” cash game episodes of Poker After Dark.

The Season 5 offering matches up players of differing skill sets and ages as internet wunderkinds face off against the live veterans. The newest extension to THE VAULT on PokerGO features a high stakes cash game with a battle of skill and bragging rights on the line.

The “Vets” side feature some of the cowboys of poker with Doyle Brunson and Gabe Kaplan on centerstage. They were joined by Eli Elezra and squared off against three of the top young minds in the game.

Representing the “Nets,” Taylor Caby and Cole South were ahead of their generation by miles. The pair were major players in the former training site Card Runners and used their online cash game prowess to amass a small fortune.

David Benefield is the best known of the three young guns as a result of his final table finish in the 2013 World Series of Poker Main Event. Referred to as “Raptor” online, Benefield played high stakes cash games for many years and found solid footing in live tournaments with cashes in multiple $50,000 buy-in events.

All players bought in for at least $100,000 but that’s not the big number that jumps out from the table. The combined ages of the “Nets” were 68 at the time of the episode’s taping. That is four years less than Brunson, who was 72 when the battle of ages took place.

Kaplan opens the conversation by saying “Doyle, it’s nice of you to bring your grandsons here to play with us.”

The table chatter is not as lively in this episode as it is in other but there are fun barbs thrown in by both sides.

Notably, Benefield comments on the tighter play of the “Vets” and says the episode should be called “Nets vs. Nits.”

All six players at the table are sharp in their own right but were also ahead of their time by mutually agreeing that a 30-second shot clock would be good for poker. We all know by now what a great idea they had but it took multiple years before the tanking epidemic hit its peak and tours decided to implement it.

The full cash game battle of “Nets vs. Vets” is now available on PokerGO inside THE VAULT. It may be new school versus old school but great poker never skips a generation.

New episodes of Poker After Dark start on October 17 with the highest stakes yet as “Perks of the Trade” week kicks off.