On Saturday at 9:00pm ET, the Full Tilt Doubles Poker Championship continued airing on GSN. The third round of regular season matches began with Phil Hellmuth teaming with Toto Leonidas, Annette Obrestad teaming with Annie Duke, Phil Laak teaming with Phil Ivey, and Phil Gordon teaming with Jennifer Harman. The unique match boasted four players named Phil and the first all-female team.
Each pair received 50,000 in starting chips and players alternated action by street. Each team is randomly assigned and, out of the 32 players that entered, 16 will make the post-season after four preliminary matches. Players are not allowed to talk strategy at the table while their team has cards. Instead, teams are allotted one 30-second time out to confer.
Harman and Gordon doubled up through Obrestad and Duke after flopping a king-high flush against the nut straight. Then, the contingent of ladies was out in fourth place after running Q-10 into the pocket tens of Gordon and Harman. They received zero points for the regular season standings and Duke, a UB.com pro, was nearly assured to miss the playoffs.
Laak committed his team’s chips pre-flop with A-Q and ran into Hellmuth’s Big Slick. Hellmuth called all-in and watched in agony as Laak’s team flopped two pair. Hellmuth and Leonidas headed for the exit in third place and received four points apiece.
In the match’s final hand, Ivey moved all-in before the flop with a wired pair of threes and Gordon made the call with pocket jacks. The board ran out 10-5-6-7-8 and Gordon and Harman claimed the title and 20 points. Through three regular season matches, Gordon has racked up 44 points, with Doubles Poker Championship commentator Brandon Adams speculating that 35 will be needed to make the playoffs. Ivey and Obrestad each stood at 31 points with one match to go in the regular season.
The second set of matches to unfold on Saturday night featured Huck Seed pairing with Carlos Mortensen, Mike Matusow teaming with Allen Cunningham, PartyPoker front man Tony G teaming with Johnny Chan, and Tom “durrrr” Dwan teaming with Victory Poker’s Antonio Esfandiari.
Doubles Poker Championship viewers were able to see Seed and Mortensen deliberate in a time out speaking only Spanish, although the team was the first to depart. Seed and Mortensen were all-in with K-3 and up against the pocket eights of Matusow and Cunningham. The flop came 3-8-3, giving Matusow and Cunningham a boat against trips and the better hand held for the win when the case three failed to come.
Chan raised to 8,500 pre-flop with pocket nines and Esfandiari made the call with J-10 of diamonds. The flop came 8-8-4 with two diamonds and Tony G led out for 8,000. Dwan pushed all-in and Tony G called. The percentages showed a virtual coin flip until a nine fell on the turn to give Tony G and Chan a boat, leaving Dwan and Esfandiari drawing dead. Dwan tossed a $5,000 casino chip to Matusow, presumably as payment for a last longer bet, and his team was eliminated in third place.
The final hand of the night saw Matusow open-shove with K-2 and Tony G call with pocket sixes. The board ran out five cards seven or lower and Tony G and Chan claimed victory. For Chan, it marked his third straight title. The former back-to-back World Series of Poker Main Event champ is the lone player to have 60 regular season points through three matches, while Seed owns 40.
Chan told Full Tilt Doubles Poker Championship host Lacey Jones why he’s been so successful: “The secret is patience, discipline, just watching the other players play, pick up a little bit here, pick up a little bit there, and just finish the hand.” You can catch new episodes every Saturday at 9:00pm ET on GSN.