On Saturday night, the third regular season round concluded on the Full Tilt Doubles Poker Championship, which airs on GSN. The festivities featured must-win matches for David Oppenheim and David Benyamine, who are fighting for post-season births. Each player competes in four regular season matches and, in a unique twist to team poker, players alternate action by street.
Oppenheim paired with Chris Ferguson in the first four-handed match of the one-hour show, while Gavin Smith paired with Andrew “luckychewy” Lichtenberger, Nick Schulman paired with Erik Seidel, and Bluefire Poker’s Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond teamed with Greg Mueller.
Despite needing a win to keep his post-season hopes alive, Oppenheim was ousted in fourth place, receiving no points towards the regular season leaderboard. Oppenheim called all-in with pocket deuces against Galfond and Mueller’s gutshot straight flush draw. A third diamond on the turn meant that Oppenheim and Ferguson were drawing to four outs on the river. None hit and they became the first casualties of the episode.
Smith and Lichtenberger were all-in and dominated with K-J against Schulman and Seidel’s A-J. The flop of 10-Q-6 made things interesting, but a running 2-3 didn’t change the status quo and Smith and Lichtenberger picked up four points for the regular season standings.
Schulman and Seidel doubled up with pocket kings against pocket queens to bring the heads-up match back to even and, in the final hand, Galfond moved his team’s chips into the middle with 4-3 of spades and Schulman called all-in with Q-9 of clubs. The flop of A-2-8 with two spades to give Schulman and Seidel a sweat and a five on the turn completed Galfond and Mueller’s wheel. The winners received 20 points for the regular season standings, while Schulman and Seidel each claimed 11.
Through three matches apiece, Galfond stood at 51 points, while Lichtenberger and Schulman had 35. Full Tilt Doubles Poker Championship host Brandon Adams speculated that around 35 points would be needed to advance to the post-season, which will see 16 players vie for a $1 million top prize. Every player coughed up $50,000 to enter.
The second match of the night, which covered the second half-hour of programming, saw Howard Lederer team with David Chiu, Andy Bloch team with Justin “Boosted J” Smith, Benyamine team with Erick Lindgren, and Gus Hansen team with Vivek “Psyduck” Rajkumar. Benyamine was the only player in the field to sport a goose egg for the regular season after two fourth place finishes.
Hansen and Rajkumar were the first to go. Hansen 3bet all-in with A-10 pre-flop and Bloch isolated with pocket queens. The board ran out 2-6-K-9-K and the fourth place finishers received no points towards the regular season standings.
Then, Lindgren raised to 7,000 pre-flop with a wired pair of jacks and Chiu came over-the-top all-in for 41,100 with A-2. Lindgren called, having Chiu’s team covered, and the board fell 10-5-2-3-8. Lederer and Chiu, who represented the “old guard of poker,” each picked up four points for the regular season leaderboard.
In the final hand, Smith and Bloch ran pocket eights into pocket nines to give Benyamine and Lindgren the title and 20 points. For Benyamine, the must-win situation turned into a trip to the winner’s circle and he’ll need to repeat his performance in the fourth round to stay alive.
Benyamine will team with Annette “Annette_15” Obrestad in his final match. He told Full Tilt Doubles Poker Championship hostess Lacey Jones, “I just hope the cards will be as good as today. I hope I’ll have nines against eights again.” Lindgren stood at 51 points after three matches and seems to be a lock for the playoffs.
Catch the Full Tilt Doubles Poker Championship on Saturdays at 9:00pm ET on GSN.
