2011 National Heads Up Poker Championship
Erik Seidel defeated Chris Moneymaker on Sunday evening to capture the 2011 NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship.
Seidel has bent the first three months of 2011 over and has completely owned it. He has a 4th in the PCA High Rollers; a 3rd in the Aussie Millions $100,000 buy-in; a win in the Aussie Millions Super High Rollers $250,000 buy-in; and another win at the LAPC High Rollers.
Now, Seidel banks another $750,000 for his NBC Heads-Up win, pushing his 2011 earnings over $4M. Seidel finished second in the NBC Heads-Up event last year to Annie Duke, a woman.
Get a full bracket breakdown here.
The day began with eight hopefuls looking to score $750,000 and the title of 2011 NBC National Heads Up Poker Champion. The day ended as it has so many other times this year, with Erik Seidel. Home Live Reporting Poker Tours NBC Heads-Up 2011 NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship. 2011 NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship. The NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship announced its complete 2011 field today. As always, there’s some “Way to get that right, nice call” additions and some complete head-scratchers. A couple first-timers that fall into the welcome addition bucket would be the man the myth the legend, Black Phil Ivey, Big Sldick, the one and only. The National Heads-Up Poker Championship is an annual poker tournament held in the United States and produced by the NBC television network. It is a $20,000 'buy-in' invitation-only featuring 64 of the world's top players, who compete in a series of heads -up no limit Texas hold 'em matches to determine an overall champion. Michael Mizrachi and David Benyamine duel in their third round match at the 2011 National Heads-Up Poker Championship from Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas.
Liv Boeree is one welcome addition to this year's NBC Heads-Up field...
The NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship announced its complete 2011 field today.
As always, there’s some “Way to get that right, nice call” additions and some complete head-scratchers.
A couple first-timers that fall into the welcome addition bucket would be the man the myth the legend, Black Phil Ivey, Big Sldick, the one and only Dwyte Pilgrim as well as Daniel “Jungleman12″ Cates. Pilgrim should infuse some much needed trash talk/fun to the show, and Cates is just a flat-out sick heads-up player.
Somehow still getting invites are former WSOP champs like Greg Raymer and “Salty” Joe Hachem, and high-stakes TV regulars like Eli Elezra and non-high stakes TV regulars Allen Cunningham and (albeit a great TV personality) Phil Gordon. And while you won’t find a person with a bad thing to say about Eugene Katchalov (auto-qualifier?) and Kara Scott, not sure the value they’re adding.
The one element that would add some increased buzz to the event is the celeb factor. Now, this is more challenging than you’d think, as the aforementioned celebs need to be available from Thursday March 3rd through Sunday March 6th and be willing to potentially drop at least a portion of the buy-in.
Regardless, there’s only so much Don Cheadle and Gabe Kaplan an audience can take. There’s plenty of younger Hollywood talent/personalities that could inject more mainstream interest in the field/broaden the audience for the show. Or get NBC to put stars from their properties in the event (surprised this hasn’t happened yet, actually).
2011 National Heads Up Poker Championship 2005
Other positives for this year’s event: the buy-in has increased from $20,000 to $25,000, meaning that first will receive $750,000 (as opposed to $500,000).
2011 National Heads Up Poker Championship 2020
Read more on the release here.