HEADS-UP CHAMPIONSHIP IN SPOTLIGHT NEXT WEEK

Except for a couple of online qualifiers yet to be determined, the elite field for the 5th Annual National Heads-Up Championship is set for play March 6-8 at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas.

The bracket-style tournament format, patterned after the NCAA basketball playoffs, always provides exciting action and more than a few surprises each year. That’s mainly because in any given single-elimination match, a heavy favorite can run into a hot underdog and get bounced from the event.

The eventual champion, however, likely will be the player who gets lucky once or twice in a match but overall plays at the top of his or her game for every round.

Although there are only 5 or 6 women in the field, don’t be too surprised if a Jennifer Harman, Annie Duke or Clonie Gowen makes it to the finals.

Click “read more” to see today’s news release and the updated list of players.
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UPDATE: Theo “The Thunder” Jorgensen defeated Gus “The Great Dane” Hansen in their much-ballyhooed boxing match on Saturday in Copenhagen. The fight lasted three rounds and judges ruled Jorgensen the winner.

GUS WILL BOX ONE GUY, ANNIE WILL DUKE IT OUT WITH 15 OPPONENTS ON NBC’S “CELEBRITY APPRENTICE”

Gus Hansen gets a massage during the World Series main event last summer.

Two of the big names in poker are about to capture the spotlight for something else.

On Saturday, at about 2 p.m. CST, three-time WPT champ Gus “The Great Dane” Hansen will box fellow countryman (and WSOP-Europe bracelet winner) Theo “The Thunder” Jorgensen in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Although there’s money on the line — Hansen put up $35K to Jorgensen’s $25K — the match seems mostly to be about huge bragging rights and a bit of hype helping to launch Hansen’s new poker site, gushansentv.com, which will feature the popular player giving poker tips, reviewing famous hands he has played, and more.

The match is to be streamed live on the site. Oddsmakers have installed Jorgensen as a 60-40 favorite, but Hansen has been quoted as saying he’s in better shape than his opponent and will try to make the fight “a brawl” to offset Jorgensen’s superior boxing technique.

Meanwhile on March 1, Annie Duke will be one of 16 well-known folks vying for prize money for charity on the second season of “The Celebrity Apprentice” on NBC.

In a blog posting this week, Duke said she usually declines reality show offers but accepted this one once she learned the contestants were playing for charities. She’ll be playing for Refugees International, a sister charity to Ante Up For Africa, an organization she co-founded that has generated $2 million in donations to combat genocide in Darfur.

Duke can’t reveal any results, but said she really did her homework before the episodes were taped late last year. “You are going to have to watch to see how I do and whether my preparation pays off,” she blogged.

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CHRIS FERGUSON TO DEFEND NHPC TITLE


One of the more popular poker events each year — the National Heads-up Poker Championship — has been announced for 2009.

The tournament will be played March 6-8 at Caesars Palace, then shown on NBC over six consecutive Sundays in April and May. The reigning champ is Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, who gave me a great interview a couple of years ago which led to this column.

In our conversation, he explained how he became skilled enough at heads-up play to finish runner-up in this event in its first two years and win the title last year.

Chris Ferguson

Here is today’s news release announcing the event, with an early list of qualifiers:
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The votes are in and poker’s holding a winning hand.

Establishing regulated online poker in the U.S. finished 11th out of thousands of ideas for action collected by the Citizen’s Briefing Book on the president’s own campaign Web site for review by the Obama Administration. (Scroll down for earlier post.)

The issue of legalizing online poker and scrapping the ill-conceived Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act generated the second-highest number of comments — the huge majority of which supported people’s freedom to play skill games such as poker on the Internet.

Those top ideas have been hand-delivered to the president, according to the Poker Players Alliance.

“Of the thousands of proposals submitted, a proposal supporting Internet poker rights was consistently in the top 15 during the voting, ending up at #11 - and #2 for number of user comments,” the PPA said in an open letter to President Obama.

You, too, can send that letter — amended however you see fit, if you wish — to the president to make your individual voice heard. Just click here for details.

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Poker players and Steve Martin fans will get a kick out of this short clip from the comedian’s guest appearance Monday night on the Dave Letterman show.

He talks about playing Internet poker in his sleep — well, Ambien sleep, that is. Since he won $$$, I’m wondering if that’s the secret to beating the online game! LOL…

He refers to playing “when it was legal”, but apparently doesn’t realize that even the dastardly UIGEA legislation passed by the Bush administration doesn’t make it illegal to play poker online!

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