Friday, Feb. 29, 2008

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NHUPC first round set to go

J.R. begins his first foray into the NHUPC today against Sam Grizzle.

By Sarah Polson

NBC rolled out the red carpet Thursday night for players in the National Heads-Up Poker Championship, giving them a chance to party as the first-round match-ups were set. The soirée, and the draw to see who would play whom, took place at Pure nightclub at Caesars Palace.

Some of the interesting pairings that resulted include Phil Ivey being paired against PokerStars qualifier Alisha Kunze. She battled her way to a seat for free at PokerStars.net, proving she's got what it takes to compete in heads-up action.

However, Ivey is coming off his first World Poker Tour win, which he added to his resume Thursday night at the WPT L.A. Poker Classic while the other NHUPC players were partying.

Phil Hellmuth also made the final table of the LAPC where he came in sixth place. He's matched up against Tom "durrr" Dwan, an online player who started making a name for himself in the live poker world toward the end of 2007 when he came in fourth at the WPT World Poker Finals.

Despite women comprising a low percentage of the playing field, the first round will have some girl-on-girl action as well with Jennifer Tilly and Clonie Gowen facing off.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg of the pairings that take place today. The brackets for the event are as follows:

Hearts

• Vanessa Rousso vs. Antonio Esfandiari
• Shannon Elizabeth vs. Andy Bloch
• Todd Brunson vs. Scott Fischman
• Jamie Gold vs. Tom Kelly
• Ted Forrest vs. Orel Hershiser
• Allen Cunningham vs. Chad Brown
• Jean-Robert Bellande vs. Sam Grizzle
• Paul Wasicka vs. Freddy Deeb

Diamonds

• Jason Alexander vs. Huck Seed
• David Pham vs. Brian Townsend
• Jennifer Tilly vs. Clonie Gowen
• Daniel Negreanu vs. Michael Mizrachi
• Barry Greenstein vs. Howard Lederer
• David Benyamine vs. Jennifer Harman
• Sam Farha vs. Doyle Brunson
• Erick Lindgren vs. Eli Elezra

Clubs

• Jonathan Little vs. Erik Seidel
• Patrik Antonius vs. Gabe Kaplan
• Greg Raymer vs. Hooman Nikzad
• Kenny Tran vs. Scott Clements
• Mike Matusow vs. Joe Hachem
• Tom Dwan vs. Phil Hellmuth
• Tom Schneider vs. Gavin Smith
• Chris Ferguson vs. John Juanda

Spades

• Don Cheadle vs. Gus Hansen
• Scotty Nguyen vs. Bill Edler
• Chris Moneymaker vs. Jerry Yang
• David Singer vs. Phil Laak
• Phil Ivey vs. Alisha Kunze
• David Williams vs. Johnny Chan
• Daniel Schreiber vs. T.J. Cloutier
• Annie Duke vs. J.C. Tran

The Hearts bracket is scheduled to begin play at 10:15 a.m. (PST). The Diamonds are expected to begin play at 1:15 p.m., with the Clubs following at 4:15 p.m. and the Spades at 6:45 p.m.

You're not going to want to miss a single minute of this action, and PokerListings.com will be on scene to make sure you get all the updates from the event that you can handle. Check out the action in the Live Tournaments section.

Related Article: Players Face Off Friday at NHUPC

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