2011 National Heads-Up Poker Championship Field Taking Shape

This week, a partial list of entrants in the 2011 National Heads-Up Poker Championship was released. The unique single-elimination tournament, which emanates from Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, is set for March 3rd to 6th and will feature 64 of the game’s brightest minds. Last year, former UB.com pro Annie Duke defeated good friend Erik Seidel in the finals and banked $500,000.

This time around, $1.8 million in prize money will be on the line and the top player will walk away with three-quarters of a million dollars. The tournament will be shown on NBC and, needless to say, network officials are looking forward to the high-stakes, high-octane event playing out.

Jon Miller, President of Programming of NBC Sports and Versus, commented in a press release, “We are proud to broadcast the National Heads-Up Poker Championship for a seventh consecutive year for our viewers to see some of the most exciting poker in the world. You never know what match-ups you are going to get in Heads-Up. Every year, we are amazed with the outcome of who beats who when the best of the best battle it out.”

In 2011, the National Heads-Up Poker Championship will see Duke return to defend her title. Duke explained in the same press release, “Year after year, I look forward to competing among the toughest competition out there that the Heads-Up tournament brings together for fans to see nationwide. I am excited to compete against the skill and mental toughness that my fellow poker players will showcase on the tables.” Duke became the event’s first female winner last year.

Duke’s road to victory in 2010 included wins over Andy Bloch, Darvin Moon, Paul Wasicka, Jerry Yang, and Dennis Phillips. Seidel defeated the likes of Huck Seed, David Williams, Chris Moneymaker, Peter Eastgate, and Scotty Nguyen. If you’re keeping track at home, that means Seidel bested four World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event champs en route to victory.

One of the big stories in this year’s installment is the return of 2008 Main Event champ Peter Eastgate, who announced on Thursday that he was temporarily coming out of retirement to play in two tournaments, the National Heads-Up Poker Championship in Las Vegas and the European Poker Tour’s stop in Copenhagen, Denmark. Eastgate is fresh off auctioning off his bracelet for charity on eBay; the heirloom fetched $147,500.

Seidel, Seed, Bloch, Vanessa Rousso, Phil Ivey, Doyle Brunson, Chris Ferguson, Daniel Negreanu, and reigning WSOP Main Event champion Jonathan Duhamel will also participate.

The bracket will be determined at a special draw party at the PURE nightclub at Caesars Palace on March 3rd. The tournament itself will run from March 4th to 6th. Each round is single-elimination sans the finals, which are played as a best of three. The domain name registration and web hosting service GoDaddy serves as its presenting sponsor, a title the company has held for the last two years.

Phil Hellmuth bested Ferguson in the first ever National Heads-Up Poker Championship in 2005. In 2006, Ferguson once again fell in the finals, this time to Ted Forrest. Paul Wasicka defeated Chad Brown in 2007 before Ferguson finally exacted revenge in 2008, when he edged out Bloch heads-up. In the 2009 tournament, Seed defeated Rousso.

When the tournament airs on NBC, Ali Nejad and Craig Hummer will provide the call of the action, while Leeann Tweeden will conduct interviews from the floor. Nejad and Tweeden are the regular hosts of NBC’s “Poker After Dark.”

You can catch the tournament over six consecutive Sundays in April and May on NBC.

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Poker glossary:

READ - To determine whether an opponent has a good, medium or bad hand by observing his personal behavior. An inexact science.
LOOSE - Playing more hands than the norm. Antonym: TIGHT.
FISH - A player who loses money. An old saying is "If you can't spot the fish at the table, *you* are the fish.".
BRODERICK CRAWFORD - In Hold'em, hole cards of 10-4. From the 1950s TV series "Highway Patrol", starring Broderick Crawford.
RIVER - The last card dealt in a hand of stud or Hold'em.
OPENERS - Cards in a hand that qualify a player to open the betting.

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