Huck Seed wins NBC National Heads Up Championship

This years National Heads Up Poker Championship brought 64 top ranked poker players from throughout the world. The buy-in for the event was $20,000, making the top prize a half million dollars. The event certainly lived up to its expectations with the final match being played by Vanessa Rousso and Huck Seed.

The final match consists of three heads up games, but as Seed won the first two games, the third game wasn’t necessary and Seed collected the $500,000 grand prize while Rousso received $250,000 for her runner up finish.

The event this year was the 5th edition of the Challenge, taking place in Las Vegas at Caesars Palace. The player list included several online and live qualifiers, a few dozen pro players and all four previous winners. Chris Ferguson, last years winner was eliminated on Day 1, the three other former champs Phil Hellmuth, Paul Wasicka and Ted Forrest won their initial match but didn’t make it to the final heads up game.

Some other notable names in the field were poker legends Johnny Chan, Daniel Negreanu and Doyle Brunson, World Series of Poker champions Jamie Gold, Chris Moneymaker, Joe Hachem, Jerry Yang, Greg Raymer, and a host of other top names.


With a structured field of four 16 player flights, each named after a suit, play on Day 1 continued as players competed within their flight until 32 of the players were eliminated. The Hearts group proved to be the one to watch with all eight of their matches being finished within 90 minutes.


The win brings Seed's career winnings to well over $4 million. The 40-year-old Caltech-educated poker pro includes a 1996 WSOP Main Event victory and a 1999 WSOP final table cash in his cv, along with many other key competition wins.

News Added: 10 March, 2009

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