Home / Poker News January 2013 / NBC National Heads-up Poker Championship Kicks Off
NBC National Heads-up Poker Championship Kicks Off
Posted by: Randy Williams - Sat, 2013-01-26 09:51
To the delight of the
poker world, the NBC’s National heads-up Poker Championship kicked off on Thursday, featuring 64 specially invited players. The competitors who were paired up against one another in 32 round one heads-up bouts, each coughed up $25k in the hopes of defeating several high profile opponents heads-up on their way to a $750k top prize. Given how well-stacked all the competitors are though, it’s safe to affirm that the bragging rights in this
poker tournament and the actual poker spectacle which results are much more important than the top prize itself.
After the first round, half the starting field bit the dust. Antonio Esfandiari, the winner of the Big One for One Drop, made his way into the second round disposing of Jennifer Tilly. Barry Greenstein defeated Ben Lamb to advance, while Viktor Blom’s path into the second round led through Andrew Lichtenberger.
Phil Ivey and Justin Bonomo advanced as well. Doyle Brunson’s first round success against Tom Marchese set up quite a battle of the generations: he ended up facing Tom Dwan in the second round and he said he predicted a short match “one way or the other”. Dwan was the one who managed to get the better of Tex Dolly in the second round, so he moved on to face Brian Hastings in a battle of the online poker wonder-kids.
Esfandiari bested Jonathan Duhamel in the second round, so he moved on as well, to face Daniel Cates in the third.
Vanessa Rousso had an extremely successful run as well: she bested Yevgeniy Timoshenko and Shaun Deeb to end up facing Scott Seiver in the third round.
Phil Ivey brought the goods too: he defeated Phil Laak and Justin Bonomo to stay alive in the event.
