The NHUPC Starts Today
The 2011 National Heads-Up Poker Championship (NHUPC) gets under way today at the Caesars Palace Casino in Las Vegas. The Draw Party was held at the PURE nightclub last evening when 64 invited top poker professionals came to know who they will be facing in the opening round. The three day event gets over on Sunday March 6.
The NHUPC is structured like a knockout tennis tournament. The players are divided into two halves, which are further divided into two parts each. The four quarters are named after the four suits, Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts and Spades. Each suit starts with 16 players and after each round the losing players are out of the tournament. After four rounds each of the suits will have a winner. Then on March 6 the winners of the two black suits will play each other and the winners of the two red suits will play each other. The two remaining players will battle it out for the title of the NHUPC champion.
The leading poker babes are participating in the NHUPC. None of them are competing against each other in the first round. The Clubs suit has Liv Boeree and Annette Obrestad. In the Spades suit Jennifer Tilly is playing the grand old man Doyle Brunson and it will be difficult to say who is the happier of the two. Hearts has Venessa Rousso, who is up against a tough opponent in Michael Mizrachi. Vanessa Selbst and Jennifer Harman are the poker babes in the Diamonds suit.
There are some excellent man-to-man clashes lined up in the first round. Patrik Antonius is playing Sorel Mizzi, Phil Laak is playing Daniel Negreanu and Peter Eastgate is playing Chris Fergusson. Incidentally Laak (in picture) has just had his record for the longest poker stint confirmed by Guinness. Laak had played 115 hours nonstop in June 2010. Players who have easier first round opponents are Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan and Mike Matusow.
Former NHUPC champions include Annie Duke, Chris Ferguson, Ted Forrest, Phil Hellmuth and Huck Seed. The NHUPC is televised and the episodes will be aired on NBC on Sundays from April 17.
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