Sunday certainly seems to be the time for poker fans to get their fill of televised poker action. As the World Poker Tour continues its seventh season run on Fox Sports Network on Sunday nights and new episodes of “High Stakes Poker” are aired on GSN simultaneously, national television network NBC will begin its broadcasts of the 2009 National Heads Up Poker Championship sponsored by GoDaddy.com this Sunday at noon Eastern time.
The NHUPC, contested between 64 of the biggest names in the poker world, was completed last month at Caesars in Las Vegas. NBC, as they have done since the inception of the tournament in 2005, was there to capture all of the action from the felt. The first two-hour broadcast of this year’s event features top professionals that should draw viewers to their televisions for something other than NASCAR or baseball.
This Sunday’s two hour broadcast will feature play in the Spades and Clubs brackets and offers plenty of action around the Caesars floor. In the Clubs bracket – which will be the featured bracket of the first hour – there are several pairings taking place on the side that would normally be “featured battles.” While poker legend Doyle Brunson takes on PokerStars and GoDaddy.com sponsored pro Vanessa Rousso and 2008 WSOP H.O.R.S.E. champion Scotty Nguyen takes on Hevad “Rain” Khan on the sidelines, the featured matches will have Daniel Negreanu’s fight with 2003 WSOP champion Chris Moneymaker and the intriguing battle between Full Tilt Poker’s Mike “The Mouth” Matusow and Italy’s poker prodigy Dario Minieri.
The second hour of the broadcast will feature play in the Spades bracket. Much like the first hour, there are solid matches that will be seen but aren’t the featured match-ups of the broadcast. Such matches as Gavin Griffin’s face-off with online ace Tom “durrr” Dwan and current WSOP Europe champion John Juanda vs. 2005 WSOP Main Event champ Joe Hachem’s will be taking place around the featured tables. At the featured tables, “High Stakes Poker” announcer Gabe Kaplan’s battle with former World Champion Chris “Jesus” Ferguson takes center stage alongside the match up of two venerable poker champions: WPT announcer Mike Sexton and eleven-time WSOP bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth.
NBC’s broadcast of the NHUPC will continue to take place each Sunday over the next six weeks. The two remaining brackets – the Hearts and Diamonds brackets – will be on the air next Sunday and future broadcasts of the NHUPC will work down to the best-of-three championship, which will be broadcast on May 6th.
Over its five year history, the NHUPC has featured some of the best poker action that has been seen on television. Because of its unique format – a NCAA style bracket tournament and a multitude of the top players in the poker world – the airings of the NHUPC have traditionally drawn strong audiences. Perhaps because of the challenges of having to win seven times to take the title (the Championship match is a “best two of three” affair), the former champions of the tournament read like a Who’s Who of poker: Inaugural champion Hellmuth (2005), Ted Forrest (2006), Paul Wasicka (2007) and defending champion Ferguson.
To see who will become the latest name to join these preeminent players, be sure to tune in to NBC’s coverage of the National Heads Up Poker Championships beginning this Sunday at noon Eastern time.