Heads Up! 2010 NBC Heads-Up Tourney Is Here

Well, it looks as though I might have overshot the 2010 Mastodon Weekend by about, oh, 675 miles or something. While others degen it up in G-Vegas, I am spending the weekend in West Palm Beach with Vera Valmore, attending with her a dressage competition. Will be, I imagine, a marginally less intense time these next couple of days here in southern Florida, although I have to say I’m very glad to be able to get away with Vera like this.

So far Florida is not the sunny, pleasant place we were hoping to find, but rather chilly and uncomfortably windy. Vera is getting to see some excellent rides, though, including some by Olympians and other top competitors in the sport.

Meanwhile, since I have found myself in a state that actually has live poker, I have already taken the opportunity to play a bit.

Gonna save the live poker report until Monday. I have made one quick (and happily profitable) trip to the Palm Beach Kennel Club thus far. May or may not get to play again -- we’ll see. Was an interesting session, though, that included a couple of semi-interesting and/or memorable hands. So, like I say, I will share a bit about it early next week.

Setting that aside, though, since poker-wise we’re all mostly preoccupied with that NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship that kicks off this afternoon. Last night a draw was held to determine the brackets. Funny to read all of the tweets from all of the players, each of whom seems to have responded to his or her draw the same way: “Tough match!”

Here is how that draw wound up:



















Clicking the image gets you to a better look. Or just go over to the NBC site and download it yrself.

Even with all of the special invites and other funny business surrounding the selection of folks to play, all four brackets look pretty tough. Once again, anyone who manages to win six matches -- even with the relatively fast structures -- will have accomplished something noteworthy, I think.

I wrote a preview of the event appearing over on Betfair today. I believe F-Train and the PokerNews folks will be providing coverage, so check that out if you’re interested (here is their live reporting page). Episodes will start airing later next month on NBC, continuing for six straight Sundays until the end of May.

Sheesh. That’ll be just in time for the start of this year’s WSOP. Already?

Enjoy the weekend, all.