Full Tilt Poker Doubles Championship Premieres on GSN

On Saturday night, the Full Tilt Poker Doubles Championship premiered on GSN, taking the place of the Aussie Millions, whose Main Event wrapped up last weekend. A $1 million first place prize is up for grabs in the Doubles Championship and 32 players coughed up $50,000 each to enter. The unique show was taped at the Golden Nugget in Downtown Las Vegas and featured Brandon Adams and David Tuchman on the call.

Teams were randomly assigned and players alternated action by street. Each team had one 30-second time out to talk strategy and a regular season will play out before the semi-finals and finals. Match 1 teams took center stage during the first half-hour of coverage, as Toto Leonidas paired with Howard Lederer, Greg “FBT” Mueller paired with Phil Hellmuth, Vivek “Psyduck” Rajkumar paired with Johnny Chan, and Antonio Esfandiari paired with Allen Cunningham.

After falling behind early, Rajkumar and Chan battled back, doubling up at the expense of Hellmuth and Mueller with A-Q against A-J. A jack hit on the flop, but the better pre-flop hand reclaimed the lead when a queen fell on the turn. Mueller and Hellmuth were eliminated on the next hand shown, running A-7 into pocket nines. Hellmuth gave Doubles Championship floor reporter Lacey Jones his take on Mueller’s decision to commit his team’s chips with A-7 pre-flop: “Greg won two bracelets [in 2009], so he’s been awesome. I asked him to trust his instincts.”

Esfandiari and Cunningham hit the skids in third place after coming out on the short end of a race and notched four points each toward the season standings. Then, Lederer and Leonidas called all-in with K-4 of diamonds on a board reading 10-10-A-9 with three diamonds for the nut flush. They were up against Chan and Rajkumar’s J-10 and, needing the board to pair, Chan and Rajkumar watched as an ace hit on the river for a full house. Lederer and Leonidas each earned 11 points for the regular season standings, while the win by Chan and Rajkumar was worth 20 points and $10,000 in cash.

After a commercial break, Match 2 teams took to the felt for the second half-hour of the one-hour program. Gavin Smith teamed with Carlos Mortensen, Phil “The Unabomber” Laak teamed with Andy Bloch, Phil Ivey teamed with Nick Schulman, and high-stakes cash game pros David Benyamine and Tom “Durrrr” Dwan paired up. The latter two were the first to be eliminated, calling all-in pre-flop with A-J against Ivey and Schulman, who turned over pocket eights. The board ran out Q-9-8-K-6 and Ivey and Schulman’s set was good enough to scoop the pot.

Ivey and Schulman doubled up twice through Laak and Bloch. Then, Laak and Bloch were relegated to the rails after open-shoving with J-6 pre-flop and receiving a call from Smith and Mortensen, who held Q-7. The flop contained a queen and a seven, leaving Laak and Bloch drawing thin, and a running 3-9 didn’t improve matters.

The stacks were virtually even entering heads-up play before Ivey and Schulman moved all-in pre-flop with 9-7. Mortensen and Smith called all-in for their Doubles Championship lives with A-6 and, after the first four community cards blanked out, a seven hit on the river to give Ivey and Schulman the title, 20 points towards the regular season standings, and $10,000 in real money. The hand marked the second of the episode in which Schulman committed his team’s chips with 9-7 only to see a miracle river card.

Ivey told Jones in a rare interview, “I thought it was a fun format, passing it back and forth. There’s a lot of little things you can do and we got into a pretty good rhythm.” The Full Tilt Poker Doubles Championship continues next Saturday at 9:00pm ET on GSN.