$20,000 Heads-up Championship Day 1 | 2009 NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship

03-06-2009 23:55 UTC-7

The durrrr Machine Churns On

[user75032]

Tom "durrrr" Dwan is through the Second Round. He called with {A-Hearts}

after the short stack, Gavin Griffin, open-shoved the button with {J-?}

. Neither player hit the {5-?}

board. Griffin is eliminated; Dwan moves on to face Barry Greenstein tomorrow.

Tags: Gavin Griffin Tom Dwan

03-06-2009 23:56 UTC-7

Gavin Smith has just been eliminated from the tournament after suffering a major league bad beat, put on by heads-up opponent Ilari 'Zigmund' Sahamies.

Sahamies put Smith all in before the flop holding {J-Clubs}

and Smith made the call with {A-?}

, having Sahamies dominated.

By the turn, the board had filled out {K-?}

and Gavin needed only to dodge a jack on the river to stay alive. As fate would have it, he couldn't, as Zigmund spiked a jack on the river to win the match, sending Smith to the rail.

Tags: Gavin Smith Ilari Sahamies

03-07-2009 00:02 UTC-7

'ElkY' Knocks Off Collins; Advances to the Round of 32

[user38449]

For awhile there, it looked like Fred Collins had more lives than a cat after he'd survived at least four all-in confrontations against heads-up opponent Bertrand 'ElkY' Grospellier. In the end, however, ElkY proved to be too much for Collins to handle.

With the blinds uber-high, Collins open-shoved all in holding the {A-Clubs}

and Grospellier looked him up with a pocket pair of fours. The board then ran out king-high and ElkY's baby pair held up to win the pot and the match.

Grospellier will face off against fellow online pro Ilari 'Zigmund' Sahamies in tomorrow's Round of 32.

Tags: Bertrand Grospellier Fred Collins

03-07-2009 00:04 UTC-7

Dim the Lights -- We're Done with Day One

[user75032]

The 2009 NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship kicked off today with 32 first round matches. Those matches produced 32 winners just before 11pm local time. It was a good day for all of the previous champions except for the defending champion. Phil Hellmuth, Ted Forrest and Paul Wasicka all advanced to Round Two. Defending champion Chris Ferguson did not, falling to Gabe Kaplan in one of the last matches of the day

The full list of second round matches is:

{A-Hearts}

Hearts {A-Hearts}

Eli Elezra v. Erick Lindgren
David Williams v. Scott Fischman
John Phan v. Jerry Yang
Sam Farha v. Peter Eastgate

{A-Diamonds}

Diamonds {A-Diamonds}

Kenny Tran v. Jen Harman
Phil Laak v. David Oppenheim
Gus Hansen v. Huck Seed
Glen Chorny v. Brad Garrett

{A-Clubs}

Clubs

Don Cheadle v. Paul Wasicka
Phil Ivey v. Vanessa Rousso
Scotty Nguyen v. Ted Forrest
Daniel Negreanu v. Dario Minieri

{A-Spades}

Spades {A-Spades}

Gabe Kaplan v. John Juanda
Ilari Sahamies v. Bertrand Grospellier
Jeffrey Ishbia v. Phil Hellmuth
Tom Dwan v. Barry Greenstein

Play resumes at 1pm tomorrow. See you then.

$20,000 Heads-up Championship

Day 1 Completed