POKER PROductions, Inc. is pleased to announce that the Doubles Poker Championship was recently filmed at the Golden Nugget Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, and that a dramatic new and fun-filled eleven-week television series highlighting the action will debut on GSN on Saturday, August 14, 2010 at 9:00 p.m. ET.
The buy-in for this tournament was a hefty $ 50,000 per player. Thirty-two of the top professional poker players in the world competed in this event as two-person teams that shared each hand, with $ 1 million in first-place prize money awarded to the winning team.
Those who competed were David Benyamine, Andy Bloch, Johnny Chan, David Chiu, Allen Cunningham, Annie Duke, Tom Dwan, Antonio Esfandiari, Chris Ferguson, Phil Galfond, Phil Gordon, Tony G, Gus Hansen, Jennifer Harman, Phil Hellmuth, Phil Ivey, Phil Laak, Howard Lederer, Toto Leonidas, Andrew Lichtenberger, Erick Lindgren, Mike Matusow, Carlos Mortensen, Greg Mueller, Annette Obrestad, David Oppenheim, Vivek Rajkumar, Nick Schulman, Huckleberry Seed, Erik Seidel, Gavin Smith, and Justin Smith.
Throughout the entire tournament, the players from each team sat next to one another and alternated playing each street, with one player playing preflop and the turn and the other playing the flop and the river. Whoever was first to act on each team could not show their partner their hole cards until all preflop action was completed.
The tournament was divided into three segments; the regular season, the semifinals, and the final table. Each player played in four qualifying rounds with a different partner during the regular season, accumulating points based on how they finished each round. The sixteen top point accumulators advanced to the semifinals. Points in the regular season were awarded to each player as follows:
1st place: 20 points
2nd place: 11 points
3rd place: 4 points
4th place: 0 points
A huge incentive for the players was that the more points they accumulated, the more chips they started with in the semifinals.
In the semifinals, the two players with the most points from the qualifying rounds formed Team A; those with the second most points Team B, all the way down to the two players with the 15th and 16th most points who constituted Team H. Tiebreakers were in place in the event two or more players finished with the same number of points.
Once the eight teams were determined for the semifinals, they were seated by random draw on two different tables. The winning and runner-up teams from each table advanced to the final table, where the winning teams began with a 3:2 chip advantage over the runner-up teams. Play then commenced until the winning team was crowned.
Another twist was that all throughout the tournament the players could not confer with one another during a hand unless special time-outs were utilized. One time-out per team was allowed during the qualifying rounds, two during the semifinals, and three at the final table. The timeouts were sometimes critical to the success of a team, but they often backfired and at other times left players wondering why they were utilized at all, resulting in some humorous situations.
With a myriad of personalities represented, the potential team matchups just added to the excitement that the players experienced during the filming. To a player, they all loved playing in this event, as evidenced by the level of enthusiasm they exhibited and the amount of fun they had while playing.
GSN will air the Doubles Poker Championship beginning on August 14 at 9:00 p.m. ET. Each of the eight initial one-hour broadcasts will feature two of the qualifying matches, while the next two broadcasts will feature the action from each of the semifinal rounds. The final table will be aired in a special three-hour broadcast on September 25. Dave Tuchman and Brandon Adams will provide commentary, while poker player/fashion model Lacey Jones will serve as the sideline reporter. Check your local listings for the exact time in your area.
Brief bios on all players who participated in the Doubles Poker Championship will soon be available at http://www.gsntv.com. Each episode will also be available for viewing at the above website shortly after air time.
Dennis Oehring serves as the Public Relations Coordinator for the firm POKER PROductions.
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