2010 NBC Heads-Up Championship - Live Updates

The 2010 NBC heads-Up Poker Championship is over and Annie Duke is champion! Her best-of-three match with Erik Seidel went the distance and ultimately it ended like so many matches in this event, with a big preflop all-in.

We knew it wouldn't take long for the shortstacked Seidel to get his money in and when he picked up A-2 he went with it. Duke had 9-9 and was right there with him.

Duke flopped a straight draw and nailed it on the turn. Seidel missed his chop redraw and just like that we have a champion.

Duke's victory builds on Vanessa Rousso's runner-up finish here last year, proving once again that poker doesn't have a whole lot to do with gender.

Annie Duke takes $500,000 and the trophy while Erik Seidel takes $250,000 for runner-up.

Check out the full results right here and join us tomorrow as we bring you live coverage of the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star in San Jose.

Well, Annie has been doing a lot of shoving and when Erik Seidel made it 80k from the button she did it again.

Seidel had A-K and snap-called, seeing he was ahead of Annie's Q-9. A lot was riding on this flop and Erik couldn't have been happy to see a queen in the window.

A nine on the turn made it official and Duke takes a dominant lead. Seidel's left with around 250k.

Blinds are going up to 20k/40k.

Erik Seidel just took down another big pot, check-calling the turn and leading the river to win without showdown.

Annie's got around 320,000 and has shoved the past three hands. We should have an all-in soon.

Update: Annie Duke's shoving has gotten her back in this event. She's taken down a long string of pots and is back up to around 500k of the 1.26 million in play.

It's hard to tell for sure because we don't have the best vantage point, and the the TD isn't doing a whole lot of announcing, but Erik Seidel looks to have a healthy lead in this match.

We've seen a couple big pots develop and most of them have gone the way of the Full Tilt pro.

Most recently Seidel bet the flop, checked the turn and bet the river on an A-A-Q-X-X board. Both he and Duke showed a queen but Seidel had the higher kicker and it earned him the pot.

The blinds are 15k/30k at the moment and they're only getting bigger so get ready for action. This thing will be over soon.

Erik Seidel fought back hard in this second match and he's tied it up with Annie Duke.

Seidel had taken a big lead before crippling Duke by winning a big pot with trip deuces. Duke was down to around 70k and got it in with 4-7 against K-T.

She flopped a seven to double up but would go broke just a few hands later.

They got it in with Seidel holding 7-8 to Duke's K-5. Seidel ended up turning a straight and faded Duke's flush redraw to tie this contest.

Hit us back in a few minutes for the tie-breaker.

Annie Duke has taken down the first match, putting the pressure squarely on Erik Seidel as we enter the second.

Duke took down two nice pots, the first with a flush and the second with a straight, before getting it all-in ahead. It was a king-high, two-spade flop and the money went in with Duke holding A-K and Seidel the spade draw.

Seidel couldn't get there and he falls behind one to zero.

The first match in this best of three final has been playing for just over 20 minutes and, as predicted, things are starting off slow.

Right now Erik Seidel has edged out a small lead through well-timed aggression. He's taken down a few pots with preflop threebets and a few more with flop cbets.

We're throwing up some photos so check the photo gallery in a few minutes for those.

It's the moment we've all been waiting for, the final match of the 2010 NBC Heads-Up Poker Championship.

It's Annie Duke against Erik Seidel, friend against friend in an all-out battle for heads-up supremacy. The stacks are deeper, 640,000, and it's a best of three format so get ready for some serious poker action.

The introductions are done and our two finalists are in their seats so without further ado, let's get to the poker.

Erik Seidel has defeated Scotty Nguyen to advance to the finals of the 2010 NBC Heads-Up Championship!

The two were near even in chips before a cooler ended it for Scotty Nguyen. With the board reading T♦ 9♥ 5♥ 7♦ 9♠ Seidel moved in.

After a brief pause Scotty said, "Alright baby, I call." And it was all over.

K♥ 9♦ for Nguyen was no good against Seidel's 9♣ 7♠. Heads-up with just 21 big blinds total in play there was no way the money wasn't going in with that set-up.

Nguyen congratulates Siedel and heads to the cage to get his $125,000.

Erik Seidel will take on Annie Duke in the finals. Stick with us for full coverage!

Annie Duke fought her way through every round of this heads-up event and she managed to take the penultimate step, defeating Dennis Phillips to secure a seat in the finals.

Duke had Dennis all-in once before but couldn't make the best hand hold up. She managed to build up a solid lead again and gave herself another chance to finish it.

Pocket sevens for Duke were racing A-8 from Phillips. The board ran out with no help to either hand and Duke is officially guaranteed $250,000.

Phillips had a great run and will take $125,000.

Scotty Nguyen and Erik Seidel are still battling it out on the main table. Once they're done we'll have our two finalists.

Nothing's been easy for Annie Duke in this tournament so far and it looks like her match with Dennis Phillips is shaking out the same way.

She had built up a commanding lead and put herself in a great spot to eliminate the former November Niner.

Phillips was all-in preflop with K-J suited against A-5. The flop rolled out king high and Phillips doubles.

Annie Duke retains a slight lead in the match and she goes back to work grinding Phillips down.

And the action has grinded to a halt once again as Scotty Nguyen stands up and walk off the set without warning. The fact that they let him do this is a little strange. It seems like they should at least blind him off if he wants to waste everyone's time.

Anyway, far be it from us to criticize the Prince.

With the deeper stacks things are taking a little while to get going anyway, but Nguyen's constant breaks aren't helping things.

It looks like Annie Duke has edged out a small lead over Dennis Phillips in her match but there's still plenty of play there.

Stick with us as we play on towards the final.

We're down to the final four at the 2010 NBC Heads-Up Poker Championship. Annie Duke, Erik Seidel, Scotty Nguyen and Dennis Phillips have all guaranteed themselves $125,000 and one of them will be leaving today with half a million dollars.

Scotty Nguyen will be taking on Erik Seidel as Annie Duke does her best to deal with Dennis Phillips.

For these semi-final matches players will start with 320,000 in chips, meaning the play will be deeper than ever before.

The blinds are as follows:

1,500/3k, 2k/4k, 3k/6k, 5k/10k, 8k/16k, 10k/20k, 15k/30k, 20k/40k.

Stay tuned as we play down to the final two.

It took some serious work but Annie Duke has finally finished of Jerry Yang, earning her a spot in the semi-finals.

Yang got lucky to double a number of times but each time he failed to put those chips to work, dwindling back down to just a few big blinds.

On the final hand they got it in with A-8 for Duke and J-3 for Yang. There was a jack in the window but an ace slid out right behind it. Yang was looking for another jack or a three but he couldn't pull it out.

Jerry Yang's out for $75,000 while Annie Duke advances to the semi-finals.

We're beginning to think there might be something to this whole religion thing because Jerry Yang is working miracles in this match.

He just got it in with A-4 against A-K and hit a five on the river to double up again. Annie Duke is looking pained but she goes right back to work and takes down the next hand.

We're pretty skeptical about Yang's shortstack play. He just limp-folded his button and he's got well under ten big blinds.

Jerry Yang is fighting back in his match against Annie Duke but he's still got a lot of work to do in order to pull even.

He was all-in twice and faded a sick amount of outs both times to double and double again. The first was all-in preflop with K♣ 9♣ for Annie against Jerry's 3♦ 6♦.

Yang hit a three on the flop but Annie flopped a flush draw to go along with her overcards. The turn gave Duke an open-ender to go with all her other outs but she missed them all on the river.

The second was an all-in preflop flip with Yang's pocket threes racing Duke's J♥ 7♥. Duke flopped an open-ender and a flush draw and somehow whiffed again to ship Yang the Pot.

After those two and another moderate pot Yang's up to around 80,000.

It took a lot of all-ins and a lot of double-ups to get it done but Dennis Phillips has finished off Doyle Brunson and earned a spot in the semi-finals.

The final hand started with Dennis Phillips in the chip lead. The money went in on a K♦ Q♦ 9♠ flop with Brunson holding a pair and a flush draw.

Phillips had A-K and it held up for the victory.

Doyle Brunson is out for $75,000 while Dennis Phillips advances to the next round.

Doyle Brunson was just at risk of elimination, all-in with the worst of it in his match against Dennis Phillips.

The money went in on a flop of K♣ T♥ 8♦ with pocket jacks for Doyle and 8-T for Phillips. Doyle was looking for a jack or some sort of funky counterfeit cards and he got the latter when the board ran out 6-6.

Brunson doubles up and gets right back in this match.

The two remaining semi-final matches will be starting momentarily. PokerListings.com is currently sitting, rapt, waiting for the players to arrive.

We're going to see Doyle Brunson take on Dennis Phillips and Jerry Yang battle Annie Duke.

All four of them are guaranteed $75k but those who advance will get a minimum of $125,000.

Players in this round get 160,000 in chips so there's a bit more play than what we've seen before. Stick with us as we bring you full coverage.

The second match of this bracket is over and, unfortunately, Jason Mercier will not be advancing. He was up against Scotty Nguyen and lost a few key pots early to fall well below the starting stack.

With the blinds rising Mercier needed to take a stand. He chose 5♣ 7♣ to do it and ran into pocket jacks from Scotty.

Mercier flopped a flush draw and we thought for sure he would get there. He didn't get there.

Mercier takes $75,000 while former world champion Scotty Nguyen moves on to the quarter finals.

We were just about report Erik Seidel's dominant chip lead over Peter Eastgate but before we could write it up the match ended.

Eastgate was very short and got it in with Q-7 against K-6. Eastgate flopped a seven but Seidel turned a king. The river was a five and Eastgate is out, taking $75,000.

Erik Seidel is through to the next round, earning a minimum of $125,000.

Seidel will be facing the winner of the Mercier-Nguyen match later today.

The first two quarter final matches have started and Scotty Nguyen has already got up and walked out the door to smoke another cigarette. It's pretty sick since he smoked his last one like 10 minutes ago right before they started rolling tape.

Unlike a real poker tournament the clock is stopped any time a smoke strikes Scotty's fancy. Considering he can only go about 15 minutes this could be a long match.

While Scotty's visiting flavor country we'll take the opportunity to fill you in on some tournament-related info.

Making it to the quarter finals guarantees you $75,000. Those who advance to the semi-finals will make a minimum of $125,000. If you make it to the final heads-up match you'll get $250k for second or a cool half million for first.

The blinds and starting stacks are also growing as we progress deeper into this event. In this round players get 160k in chips and play according to the following blind structure.

1k/2k, 1,500/3k, 2k/4k, 3k/6k. 5k/10k, 8k/16k.

PokerListings.com is back in the Caesars poker room for the ultimate day of the 2010 NBC Heads-Up Poker Championship! It looks like we'll be playing the quarters in two sessions, each consisting of two matches.

Headlining the first set is none other than PokerListings pro blogger and Team PokerStars Pro Jason Mercier. He had to defeat Daniel Negreanu, Pieter de Korver and Phil Laak to get here and now he finds himself squaring off against former world champion Scotty Nguyen.

On the second table we find Erik Seidel and Peter Eastgate.

Everyone who's made it this far is guaranteed $75,000 but the prizes get a lot bigger if they can make it through this round.

Hang tight for a few minutes while we shoot some photos. The cards will be in the air in no time.