2011 National Heads Up Poker Championship
Liv Boeree is one welcome addition to this year's NBC Heads-Up field...
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.
2011 National Heads-Up Poker Championship Episode 10 HD - Duration: 47:15. HeadsUpLisa 50,938 views. 2011 National Heads-Up Poker Championship Episode 11 HD - Duration: 46:03. In 2011 he's running hot enough and playing great enough that the board blanked out immediately on the turn. Chris Moneymaker finishes as the runner-up in the 2011 NBC National Heads-Up Poker. $50 Poker Bankroll NO DEPOSIT on a room of your choice & Get FREE Money For Poker! NO QUIZ, just CASH! Jonathan Duhamel and Chris Moneymaker do battle in their semi-final match in the 2011 National Heads-Up Poker Championship at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas.
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.
2011 National Heads Up Poker Championship 2020
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).
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).
Read more on the release here.
Another action-packed week in the poker world drew to a conclusion yesterday, with the 2011 NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championships coming to a close. A star-studded field of 64 players entered the event…
Another action-packed week in the poker world drew to a conclusion yesterday, with the 2011 NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championships coming to a close. A star-studded field of 64 players entered the event, with big names including Phil Ivey, Daniel ‘jungleman12’ Cates, Phil ‘OMGClayAiken’ Galfond, Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan, Doyle Brunson, Chris Moneymaker, Jonathan Duhamel, and well the list of names goes on and on!
One of the big names who was most overlooked before the event began was Full Tilt Poker Pro Erik Seidel. He really struggled the first four times he entered this event, however last year he blasted his way through the field to finish second (losing to Annie Duke in the final), but this year he managed to turn his fortunes around and take down the event for a massive $750,000 payday.
Seidel had a very tough road to the final and defeated Vanessa Selbst, Jennifer Harman, and Andrew Robl before taking his seat against Chris Moneymaker. After the event Seidel praised how Victory Poker Pro Andre Robl played, stating:
“There really were a lot of tough matches. Robl was really tough and that was one that really stood out to me.”
In the first match of his heads-up encounter against 2003 WSOP Main Event Champion Chris Moneymaker, Seidel slowly chipped away Moneymaker’s stack and had crippled him to just 13 big blinds. Seidel min-raised holding A2 and Moneymaker moved all-in holding 910, and the flop of J85 gave Moneymaker a straight draw, and the 7 on the turn sealed the straight and gave him a double-up. However shortly after this hand he lost all-in to Seidel’s three-of-a-kind Jacks, giving Seidel victory in the first match.
The second match was a much closer encounter, and on the decisive hand the chip stacks were pretty even. Moneymaker made a check-raise all-in holding K10 on a flop of 955 however Seidel was sitting pretty with three-of-a-kind yet again holding 45 with the hand giving him victory in the event for a payday of $750,000.
2011 NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship Results
1st: Erik Seidel – $750,000
2nd: Chris Moneymaker – $300,000
T-3rd: Jonathan Duhamel – $125,000
T-3rd: Andrew Robl – $125,000
T-5th: Olivier Busquet – $75,000
T-5th: David Oppenheim – $75,000
T-5th: David Benyamine – $75,000
T-5th: Vanessa Selbst – $75,000
T-9th: Jason Mercier – $30,000
T-9th: Ayaz Mahmood – $30,000
T-9th: Doyle Brunson – $30,000
T-9th: Eugene Katchalov – $30,000
T-9th: James Bord – $30,000
T-9th: Michael Mizrachi – $30,000
T-9th: Phil Galfond – $30,000
T-9th: Phil Gordon – $30,000