National Heads-up Poker Championship 2010

Every year at the beginning of March, it’s time for all the pro’s to go to Caesars in Las Vegas. They host the annual National Heads-up Poker Championship. An invitational heads-up tournament with a first price of $500.000. But how does the invitational-part work and who are the lucky few?

There are three different groups of people. There is a list of people who get an invitation automatically. Then there are a bunch of online qualifier and qualifiers who win their ticket in Caesars. And then there is a group of players who are asked, because of who they are. Let’s start with the first group.

The criteria and players who fulfill them are as follow:

Phil Hellmuth, Ted Forrest, Paul Wasicka, Chris Ferguson – previous NHUPC winners
Huck Seed – 2009 winner
Vanessa Rousso – 2009 runner-up
Sammy Farha and Bertrand Grospellier – 2009 semifinalists
Andy Bloch – 2008 runner-up
Joe Cada, Peter Eastgate, Jerry Yang – last three WSOP ME winners
Darvin Moon – 2009 WSOP ME runner-up
Jeff Lisandro – 2009 WSOP POY
Leo Wolpert – 2009 10k HU winner
Barry Shulman – 2009 WSOPE ME winner
Pieter de Korver – 2009 EPT Monte Carlo winner
Eric Baldwin – CardPlayer POY
Jason Mercier – Bluff POY
Phil Ivey, Brock Parker, Greg Mueller, JP Kelly – multiple WSOP bracelet winners

Then there is the group of qualifiers, who’s names aren’t known yet (and aren’t that important, let’s be honest). The amount of seven qualifiers is quite high I think. If you want to create an elite heads-up tournament, then having over 10% of the field be unknown players is too much I believe. But then, there are the other players:

Patrik Antonius
Doyle Brunson
Johnny Chan
Don Cheadle
Allen Cunningham
Annie Duke
Tom Dwan
Eli Elezra
Antonio Esfandiari
Jamie Gold
Phil Gordon
Barry Greenstein
Joe Hachem
Gus Hansen
Jennifer Harman
Orel Hershiser
Jesper Hougaard
John Juanda
Gabe Kaplan
Phil Laak
Howard Lederer
Erick Lindgren
Mike Matusow
Dario Minieri
Chris Moneymaker
Daniel Negreanu
Scotty Nguyen
Annette Obrestad
Dennis Phillips
Greg Raymer
Kara Scott
Erik Seidel
Mike Sexton
Gavin Smith
Jennifer Tilly
David Williams

A long list with all famous names. You can discuss about a lot of players (and what they did the last year(s), but they are all well known). Who are the players that aren’t invited anymore? These are: Layne Flack, Chad Brown, Scott Fischman, Ivan Demidov, David Pham, John Phan, Kenny Tran, Jonathan Little, Glen Chorny, Brad Garrett, Gavin Griffin, Vanessa Selbst, David Benyamine, Clonie Gowen, J.C. Tran, and Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies.

Now I have given all the names, we can start talking about them. Who’s invited is discussable, and who’s not there who actually should be is even more discussable. This is very personal and you can say something about almost everybody. So I will give three (random) names that I wouldn’t pick, and three that I would.

First of all, I’m not a big fan of the celebrity group. I count three amateurs (Tilly, Hershiser and Cheadle) and a lot of semi-amateurs. I would go for at least one less (Tilly, she hasn’t won anything ever and says she’s a poker player, so she shouldn’t be there). My second pick that I wouldn’t invite is Kara Scott. Yes she is nice and has some results, but I think she is casted more for her marketing value as for something else. It’s a poker tournament, not a television show (is it?). My third pick is Annie Duke (it’s close with Phil Gordon). She hasn’t had any results lately and just goes with the flow. A no pick for me. Surely, if you look at the missed players. My top three:

Kenny Tran. The heads-up WSOP champion of 2008 and a great player. Should be invited for sure. J.C. Tran. You can’t have a better tournament result history than he has. Really strange choice to not invite him. For my third choice, it’s close between Benyamine (great player, just won the Premier League of Party Poker), Phan and Pham (great tournament results), Dan Shak, Obrestad, Corkins and Timoshenko. The WPT Championship and WCOOP Main Event winner should be there. I do believe it’s a mistake in the list. Obrestad is the rising female star, Corkins has earned over a million during 2010 and Shak has already cashed in five main event tournaments (including beating Phil Ivey heads-up and winning the $100.000 buy-in tournament at the Aussie Millions). If I need just one name, I take the last: Timoshenko. What a year he had!

I really look forward to the NHPC. It’s a really nice tournament. There will always be discussion about who is invited and who is not. Last year, there was the big fuzz about Shannon Shorr who was invited and thought he needed to be. If I was in charge, I would lower the amount of celebrities and the amount of qualifiers. By doing this, you can add at least four three extra names to the field. The three I proposed above are options, but other great players are possible too. I want to end by saying that, expect the qualifiers, every players need to put up $20.000 to play. So it’s not a freeroll tournament. Good luck to everybody and I’ll post after the tournament how it went and who won.

Thomas

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