On Saturday night, the second round of matches in the Full Tilt Doubles Poker Championship played out on GSN. The unique team format features randomly assigned partners who alternate action on every street. Teammates cannot discuss strategy while they have cards unless they call a 30-second time out.
In the first match of the one-hour episode, high-stakes poker pros David Benyamine and Phil Ivey teamed up, Andrew “luckychewy” Lichtenberger partnered with Greg “FBT” Mueller, Carlos Mortensen teamed with Allen Cunningham, and UB.com’s Phil Hellmuth teamed with Jennifer Harman.
Ivey and Benyamine were the first pair to depart, getting it in with pocket fives and running into pocket tens. They received zero points towards the regular season standings and Full Tilt Doubles Poker Championship commentator Brandon Adams quipped, “They’re probably going to terrorize people on the internet.”
Hellmuth and Harman were the next team to be eliminated after moving all-in with pocket deuces and running into a wired pair of fives. Then, Mortensen and Cunningham doubled up with A-10 of clubs against Mueller and Lichtenberger’s K-9. The latter team’s chip stack sunk to three big blinds and they were eliminated on the very next hand. Mortensen and Cunningham received 20 points each for the regular season, while Mueller and Lichtenberger each accrued 11.
In the second match of the show, which spanned its last half-hour, Nick Schulman teamed with Phil Gordon, Antonio Esfandiari teamed with Chris Ferguson, and Gus Hansen teamed with Toto Leonidas. The final pair of the second match was none other than Johnny Chan and Erik Seidel, whose heads-up battle in the 1988 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event was featured in the movie “Rounders.”
Hansen and Leonidas doubled up early on, but could not sustain the momentum and finished in fourth place, netting zero points for the regular season. In their final hand, Hansen committed his team’s chips pre-flop with 10-9 of hearts, but Ferguson woke up with pocket aces. While Esfandiari furiously rubbed Hansen’s head for good luck, the board ran out 6-7-4-5-Q.
Chan and Seidel hit Broadway on the river to double up through Gordon and Schulman, who were promptly eliminated with 3-2 against Esfandiari and Ferguson’s K-6. Each received four points for their third place finish in the Full Tilt Doubles Poker Championship.
In the final hand of the night, Ferguson check-raised all-in on a flop of 4-J-A holding 4-2 for bottom pair. Chan made the call with J-6 for middle pair and the seven of diamonds came on the turn. By the river, Ferguson and Esfandiari were drawing to a deuce, four, or diamond. However, the ten of hearts hit and Chan and Seidel each picked up 20 points for the regular season after their WSOP Main Event reunion.
Chan has lodged 40 points over his first two matches after recording two wins. Each of the 32 players in the field will take to the felts for four regular season matches. Then, the top 16 will advance to the playoffs, where the winning team will split $1 million. The buy-in to the Full Tilt Doubles Poker Championship, which was filmed at the Golden Nugget in Downtown Las Vegas, was $50,000.
On his unique pairing with Chan, Seidel told hostess Lacey Jones, “I was very comfortable with the partnership. I know Johnny’s going to make the right decisions when the time comes up, so I was always happy when the cards were in his hands.”
You can catch the Full Tilt Doubles Poker Championship every Saturday at 9:00pm ET on GSN.