April 11, 2005

by Jeff Shulman

NBC and The Golden Nugget hosted one of the most exciting poker tournaments to date; 64 poker players were invited to put up $20,000 each and compete in heads-up matches. To win the title, you had to win six straight matches. It was set up like the NCAA basketball tournament. There were four groups (Spades, Hearts, Diamonds, and Clubs), and if you made it through your grouping of 16 poker players, you were in the final four. It was a two-day event with bracket selections made the night before the event. Names were drawn out of a hat, and then both poker players walked up on stage for a quick photo shoot. While this was happening, oddsmakers were setting lines on individual matches, on players to win the event, and on groups to win the event. Thus, everyone was in action one way or another.

NBC did an outstanding job with the production of this event. There were eight heads-up tables — one of which was the featured table. On large monitors in the background, the brackets were displayed so that you could see who was advancing at all times, and you could see close-ups of the players.

Heads-up play is more fun for a spectator, whether you were waiting for your next match, casually viewing from the arena, sitting at home reading the live updates at CardPlayer.com, or watching it on TV beginning in May. Many of the top poker pros who participated thought the vibe was unlike any event they had been to.

Those who won two matches got $25,000 back, and by winning three matches, got $75,000. Those who made it to the “elite eight” were John Juanda, Scott Fischman, Mike Sexton, Lyle Berman, T.J. Cloutier, Antonio Esfandiari, Chris Ferguson, and Phil Hellmuth. Phil played Antonio, and T.J. had a rematch from the 2000 World Series of Poker against Chris Ferguson. Hellmuth and Ferguson advanced to the finals, which Hellmuth eventually won. He was crowned the heads-up champ and won $500,000. Afterward, Hellmuth bought more than a dozen bottles of Dom Perignon for everyone who was still around watching.

Playing with confidence is one of the main ingredients in being a top poker player and Hellmuth is doing that right now, which makes him a more-dangerous-than-normal rival at this years World Series of Poker.