Poker Forum

Friday marked the start of the sixth-annual NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship at Caesars Palace, and out of the 64 invited competitors, only 32 would advance to round two.

It was a generally subdued day at the Caesars Palace tournament room, with very few players chatting at the tables, let alone expressing any real emotion when they won or lost. Then again, there weren't all that many dramatic bust-out hands, aside from Annie Duke's come-from-behind catch to make trip tens on the river after being out-flopped by Andy Bloch's ace-king.

While most of the day's matches could have...