Shooting it Out in Vegas

It all begins today, Friday, and by Sunday night a new unofficial World Champion of heads-up Hold'em is found. It's the National Heads-Up Poker Championship, it of course takes place in Vegas, and apart from the title, the winner will take home $500,000.

64 of the best poker players in the world have been invited to Caesar's Palace ... well, that's not true. This is television, and in television ratings are at least as important as the actual integrity of the competition, so the 64 players are in fact not really the 64 best players in the world. But it has to be said that NBC comes pretty close - even fitting in a few "misfits".
It's more like the 58 best players in the world, a few qualifiers and some Hollywood poker debris. But all in all that's not half bad.

Phil Ivey may have problems catching much sleep between playing the final table of the WPT L.A. Poker Classic and the first round of the National Heads-Up Poker Championship, NHPC, but other than him every single player invited will be eagerly waiting at the tables to get started on Friday.
Gus tells us why:
"There's quite a lot of prestige in this tournament. Every player they've invites has shown up, and there's even a waiting list to get in. The pros really want to do well here."

Gus is playing, just like Patrik Antionius, Johnny Chan, Allen Cunningham, Sam Farha, Doyle Brunson, Mike Matusow, Scotty Nguyen, Howard Lederer, Chris "Jesus" Ferguson and ... well everyone big!
And Gus hopes to do better this year than he has done previously:
"At the very least I hope to make it to Day 2 this year, which means beating my first two opponents. After that we'll just have to see. There are some very skilled players in it this year."

In 2007 Paul Wasicka won the title, but Gus doesn't necessarily find heads-up poker to favour the young and aggressive players as much as many "experts" do.
"Heads-up is primarily played by young and aggressive online players, but Paul Wasicka, Chad Brown and Shannon Elizabeth - all semi-finalists last year - are not what you'd call typical heads-up players. In heads-up most players in fact have a decent shot, but experience is definitely an important factor."

So who does Gus see as the big favourites this year?
"Certainly Phil Ivey and Patrik Antonius are always going to be favourites at the tables, but this year I also see Tom "durrrr" Dwan as a strong contender in his first appearance at the NHPC. And of course it would be stupid to disregard Chris "Jesus" Ferguson. He always does well in this event."

The National Heads-Up Poker Championship is played as a knock-out tournament with the first matches played Friday, February 29th, at 15:00 Eastern Time. The quarterfinals, semi finals and final are scheduled for Sunday, March 2nd.
The players in this year's NHPC are (in alphabetical order):

Jason Alexander
Patrik Antonius
Jean-Robert Bellande
David Benyamine
Andy Bloch
Chad Brown
Doyle Brunson
Todd Brunson
Johnny Chan
Don Cheadle
Scott Clements
T.J. Cloutier
Allen Cunningham
Freddy Deeb
Annie Duke
Tom Dwan
Bill Edler
Eli Elezra
Shannon Elizabeth
Antonio Esfandiari
Sam Farha
Chris Ferguson
Scott Fischman
Ted Forrest
Jamie Gold
Clonie Gowen
Barry Greenstein
Sam Grizzle
Joe Hachem
Gus Hansen
Jennifer Harman
Phil Hellmuth
Orel Hershiser
Phil Ivey
John Juanda
Gabe Kaplan
Tom Kelly
Alisha Kunze
Phil Laak
Howard Lederer
Erick Lindgren
Jonathan Little
Mike Matusow
Michael Mizrachi
Chris Moneymaker
Daniel Negreanu
Scotty Nguyen
Hooman Nikzad
David Pham
Greg Raymer
Vanessa Russo
Tom Schneider
Daniel Schreiber
Huck Seed
Erik Seidel
David Singer
Gavin Smith
Jennifer Tilly
Brian Townsend
J.C. Tran
Kenny Tran
Paul Wasicka
David Williams
Jerry Yang