As players battle it out in Los Angeles at the World Poker Tour’s L. A. Poker Classic, players are also looking forward to the upcoming 2009 National Heads Up Poker Championship, which will be played out from March 5th to the 8th at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. In preparing for what has become one of the most cherished championships in the poker world, officials for Caesars and their broadcast partner NBC have released the list of the 64 players who have been invited to participate in this year’s event.
Yielding perhaps to criticism over player selection in the previous four years of the tournament, the officials of the NHUPC and NBC created a list of criteria for those who would be invited to play in the event. The criteria established included being a former champion of the event, the runner-up in the tournament for the past two years, the players who were in the semi-finals of the previous year, the past three World Series of Poker Main Event champions and last year’s runner-up, multiple bracelet winners of the previous year’s WSOP and the titleholders of the WSOP Player of the Year, the WSOP Heads Up Champion, the WSOP Europe, the WPT Player of the Year, the European Poker Tour Grand Final and the reigning Players of the Year as decided by both CardPlayer and Bluff Magazines.
Just from this criteria alone, the players who have earned an automatic berth into the fifth edition of this tournament – which for the first time will have a sponsor in GoDaddy.com – read like a who’s who of poker. Previous champions Phil Hellmuth (2005), Ted Forrest (2006), Paul Wasicka (2007) and defending champion Chris “Jesus” Ferguson lead a list that, by the criteria established, also includes Andy Bloch, Chad Brown, Huck Seed, Phil Ivey, Scott Fischman, Peter Eastgate, Jerry Yang, Jamie Gold, Ivan Demidov, John Phan, Erick Lindgren, Kenny Tran, John Juanda, Jonathan Little and Glen Chorny. While these players have earned their way in through their performance over the past few years, they have a tremendous challenge in the invited players they will be battling over the four days in Las Vegas.
Former WSOP champions Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan, Greg Raymer and Joe Hachem lead a list that also includes PokerStars sponsored players Barry Greenstein and Daniel Negreanu, Full Tilt Poker teammates Howard Lederer, Mike Matusow and Erik Seidel, and first time invitees Gavin Griffin and Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier. The ladies will be represented by Annie Duke, Clonie Gowen, Jennifer Harman, Vanessa Rousso, Vanessa Selbst and actress/poker player Jennifer Tilly. There will also be a celebrity presence with legendary baseball player Orel Hershiser, “High Stakes Poker” announcer Gabe Kaplan and actor Brad Garrett, who will be making his first appearance in the NHUPC.
Caesars Palace has been allotted two satellite qualifiers for the tournament and one of those have already been taken by Jeffrey Ishbia. There will be four online qualifiers as well, with Leon Yanovski already assured of a trip to Las Vegas for the tournament. Overall the tournament should be one of the most competitive in history, with 119 WSOP bracelets, 27 WPT titles and over $290 million in career earnings garnered by the participants vying for the $500,000 first place prize.
The festivities for the 2009 National Heads Up Poker Championship will kick off on March 5th with the draw party being held at Pure, the highly exclusive nightclub on the Caesars Palace grounds. Three days of poker will whittle the field down to the champion and NBC will be there to record all of the action. The broadcast of this year’s NHUPC will start on NBC on April 12th and will work down to the title match over the next six weeks. For a full list of the players that have been invited to participate and details on earning a spot in the tournament through the online qualifiers, visit NBC’s dedicated site for the 2009 National Heads Up Poker Championship.
