$20,000 Heads-up Championship | 2009 NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship

03-08-2009 10:39 UTC-7

And Then There Were Eight

[user75032]

A very bleary-eyed good morning to you from the Caesars Palace Poker Room in fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada. The Day 3 action at the 2009 NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship starts at the ungodly-early-for-poker hour of 11am today -- and with the adjustment of clocks last night for Daylight Savings Time, it's really the even-more-ungodly-early-for-poker hour of 10am. Thankfully, there's coffee on set.

We started this tournament two days ago with eight tables on the set and 64 players in the field. Yesterday the field was cut in half to 32 players on four tables and by the end of the day it was down to eight. This morning, two more tables have been taken off the set. We'll play two matches at a time from here on out.

We haven't received any indication yet as to the order of matches today, but if recent history is any guide, the Hearts Bracket and Diamonds Bracket finals will be first up. In Hearts, David Williams will take on Sammy Farha; Diamonds pits last-minute substitution David Oppenheim against the only player to cash in all five years of this event, Huck Seed.

We expect that the Spades and Clubs finals will take place at about 1:30pm local time. On the Clubs side, it's a battle of Team PokerStars Pros when Vanessa Rousso and Daniel Negreanu square off. The Spades final could represent a changing of the guard, with old-school veteran Phil Hellmuth, the only former NBC Heads-Up Champion remaining in the field, taking on internet phenom Bertrand 'ElkY' Grospellier.

Play is scheduled to start in roughly twenty five minutes. Don't go anywhere!

03-08-2009 11:11 UTC-7

Shuffle Up and Deal!

[user75032]

Cards are in the air. It is indeed Hearts and Diamonds first up. Sam Farha and David Williams are on the feature table and seem to be competing with each other for the award for Most Distinctive Wardrobe. Huck Seed and David Oppenheim are more subdued at the back table.

03-08-2009 11:19 UTC-7

Quick Structure

[user75032]

Today players start with 160,000 chips. The blind structure is marginally better than it's been the past two day; starting blinds are 1,000 and 2,000. Levels remain fifteen minutes long.

03-08-2009 11:31 UTC-7

Williams All Dressed Up with Nowhere to Go

[user75032]

David Williams flopped a monster against Sam Farha just as the first level of play was concluding, yet somehow he's the one going home early. The board developed {Q-Hearts}

with light betting before the river. At the river, Farha was first to act and led out for 15,000. Williams raised that bet to 35,000. Farha, never known for being a passive player, responded by pushing all in and the equally-aggressive Williams called! Williams showed that he had flopped a full house with {Q-?}

, but Farha rivered a better full house with {Q-?}

.

A stunned Williams could only stand over the table with his hands on his hips, wondering how things had gone so wrong. He will collect $75,000 in prize money, while Farha prepares for the semifinals later today.

Tags: David Williams Sam Farha

03-08-2009 11:43 UTC-7

Nothing Like an Afternoon Quickie

[user38449]

Moments after Sammy Farha and David Williams' match ended, Huck Seed and David Oppenheim got it all in on the secondary feature table. As it turned out, they'd be flipping for a spot in the final four.

Huck opened the pot with a raise from the button, David reraised, Huck moved all in and David made the call:

Seed: {8-Spades}

Oppenheim: {A-Clubs}

Not far away, Farha sniffed out an opportunity to gamble and offered Oppenheim some kind of insurance bet on the hand.

"I'll bet $10,000 on his hand," Oppenheim said.

Sammy tried to finagle himself a better price, but Oppenheim wouldn't budge.

"If we could have security remove Mr. Farha," joked Oppenheim.

After the failed wager attempt, attention returned to the matter at hand. Seconds before the dealer spread the flop, Oppenheim shouted, "One time!" but his cry fell on deaf ears, as the flop came down {4-Clubs}

. The turn delivered the fatal blow when the {8-Hearts}

rolled off the deck giving Seed a set, leaving Oppenheim drawing dead.

Seed, meanwhile, is off to prep for his upcoming final four match against Sammy Farha, scheduled to begin around 4:45 p.m.

Tags: David Oppenheim Huck Seed

03-08-2009 11:43 UTC-7

Goodbye, Hearts and Diamonds; Hello, Clubs and Spades!

[user75032]

So much for a drawn-out quarterfinals on the red side of the bracket. Sam Farha and Huck Seed needed just more than fifteen minutes to knock off their opponents. They will meet in the semifinals later this afternoon.

Because of the rapid eliminations of David Williams and David Oppenheim, the entire schedule for the day has been accelerated. The black side quarterfinals, originally scheduled for 1:30pm local time, have been moved up to 12:15pm (assuming that the players can be brought to the set in time). That's in about half an hour.

We'll update the blog with further details on the schedule as they are made known to us by the producers of the tournament.

03-08-2009 12:11 UTC-7

Schedule Update

[user75032]

The latest scuttlebutt is that the Spades and Clubs finals will start at 12:45pm local time. That's in 35 minutes.

03-08-2009 12:33 UTC-7

Still No Players

[user75032]

We're still waiting on the players for the next round of quarterfinal matches, so the start time has been pushed back to 1pm (which is earlier than the original 1:30pm, but much later than the pie-in-the-sky dream of 12:15pm).

03-08-2009 13:02 UTC-7

Progress

[user75032]

All of the players are on set now and are being mic'ed up. After a few quick photo opportunities, we should be underway.

03-08-2009 13:08 UTC-7

Finally, the Second Two Quarterfinals Matches Begin!

[user75032]

We had a longer break than normal due to the speed with which the first two matches of the day ended, but cards are finally in the air. New Godaddy.com Girl Vanessa Rousso is at the feature table for her match against Daniel Negreanu, who said he "couldn't find the right heels" for his Vanessa Rousso costume. Phil Hellmuth and Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier are at the back table.