National Heads Up Championship
What’s it like to play poker in an exclusive tournament of the best players in the world?
Doyle Brunson was there, as was Greg Raymer. Daniel Negreanu took his seat, and Phil Ivey was ready to play. Also in attendance were Chris Ferguson, Phil Hellmuth, Huck Seed, Erik Seidel and two members of Team Titan = Sorel Mizzi and Sam Trickett.
64 of the world’s best gathered to play over the weekend in the National Heads-Up Poker Championship (NHPC) in Las Vegas. The NHPC is an annual, invitation only, poker tournament with a huge $25,000 buy-in, and it is produced and televised by the NBC television network.
Only eight players remain, competing for the first prize of $750,000. Unfortunately, neither Sorel nor Sam is among them.
In the NHPC, 64 invited players are paired for one-on-one competition in a single elimination format modeled after college basketball championships. The two finalists compete in a best-of-three final match series.
Sorel and Sam were both listed in the Spades Bracket, with Sorel paired up against Patrik Antonius and Sam paired up against Carlos Mortensen.
Sorel ended his first round matchup with Antonius when his AK couldn’t beat Antonius’s QQ.
In his final hand of the match, short-stacked Sam went all –in with A9 against Mortensen’s QT, but Mortensen rivered a Broadway straight to eliminate Sam.
The final eight players in the NHPC will take to the felt in four matches later today. They are:
** Erik Seidel
** Vanessa Selbst
** Olivier Busquet
** Jonathan Duhamel
** Andrew Robl
** David Benyamine
** Chris Moneymaker
** David Oppenheim
Each of the eight finalists is guaranteed $75,000 and the winner will take home $750,000.
Tags: heads up
