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…

1/3 EPISODE 11 National Heads Up Poker Championship 2011. 9 years ago 23 views. National Heads Up Poker Championship 2007 Episode 1 4/4.

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!

The 2011 NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship gets underway today with action kicking off around noon Las Vegas time in the poker room at Caesars Palace. This is the seventh year for the 64. With the 2011 NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship just days away, our own Rich Ryan decided to take a look at the favorites, dark horses, dream matches and give us a view predictions. He sought another major poker title at the 2011 NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship. Seidel opened the best-of-three match with a win. That meant Moneymaker would have. 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.

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

The World Heads-Up Poker Championship (WHUPC) was an annual elimination-format poker tournament of heads-up no limit Texas hold'em matches. The tournament was co-created by Late Night Poker's Nic Szeremeta, PokerInEurope's Jon Shoreman, and gaming journalist Rich Geller.

The event has run from 2001 to 2010 and was held in Europe. Entry was open to all. Its success led to America's creation of the National Heads-Up Poker Championship.

From 2001 to 2003, the event was held at the Concord Card Casino, Vienna, Austria.From 2004 to 2008, the event was held at the Grand Casino, Barcelona, Spain.In 2009 and 2010, the event was held at the Victoria Casino, London, England.The event did not return in 2011 and its website has not been updated since 2010.

2011 Heads Up Poker Championship Wins

The event was filmed each year for TV broadcast around the world. In 2010 the event was broadcast live via the Internet for the first time at PokerInEuropeLive.com with commentary provided by Mike Carlson, Pete Singleton, and Neil Channing.

Results[edit]

2011 National Heads Up Poker Championship

External links[edit]

2011 Heads Up Poker Championship Brackets