Earlier this week we were given a sample of the list of players who would be competing for the 2013 NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship, which will take place in less than two weeks time and air on NBC and NBC Sports in March and April. On Friday NBC finally released the full list of 64 players who have accepted the invite and will participate in the heads-up tournament which utilizes a March Madness College Basketball tournament bracket.
The tournament will take place from January 24-26, 2013 at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, with the seeding and brackets determined on January 23. Here is a look at the full TV schedule released by NBC:
• March 14 at 9 p.m. NBC Sports Network
• March 21at 9 p.m. NBC Sports Network
• March 28 at 9 p.m. NBC Sports Network
• April 6 at 1 p.m. NBC
• April 13 at 1 p.m. NBC
• April 20 at 1 p.m. NBC
Among the players who will be competing are former NBC Heads-Up Champions Phil Hellmuth, Erik Seidel, and Huck Seed, while a slew of former winners were wither not invited or declined the invite: Annie Duke, Chris Ferguson, Ted Forrest, and Paul Wasicka.
Oddly, only two celebrity poker players will be in the field, Sam Simon and Jennifer Tilly. This is also perhaps the highest skilled field we have seen, as only a few players in the field made it based on name recognition alone, and a slew of young guns are in the field.
Here is a look at the full list of 64 players who will be participating:
1. Gaelle Baumann
2. Jean Robert Bellande
3. Andy Bloch
4. Viktor Blom
5. Liv Boeree
6. Justin Bonomo
7. Doyle Brunson
8. Olivier Busquet
9. Daniel Cates
10. Mohsin Charania
11. Joseph Cheong
12. Shaun Deeb
13. Jonathan Duhamel
14. Tom Dwan
15. Eli Elezra
16. Antonio Esfandiari
17. Will “The Thrill” Failla
18. Andy Frankenberger
19. Phil Galfond
20. Matt Glantz
21. Barry Greenstein
22. Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier
23. Jennifer Harman
24. Brian Hastings
25. Isaac Haxton
26. Phil Hellmuth
27. John Hennigan
28. Maria Ho
29. Phil Ivey
30. Faraz Jaka
31. Kyle Julius
32. Eugene Katchalov
33. Phil Laak
34. Ben Lamb
35. Andrew Lichtenberger
36. Matt Matros
37. Mike Matusow
38. Jason Mercier
39. Greg Merson
40. Michael Mizrachi
41. Chris Moneymaker
42. John Monnette
43. Chris Moorman
44. Carlos Mortensen
45. Daniel Negreanu
46. David Oppenheim
47. Greg Raymer
48. Vanessa Rousso
49. Rob Salaburu
50. Matt Salsberg
51. Nick Schulman
52. Huck Seed
53. Erik Seidel
54. Scott Seiver
55. Joe Serock
56. Mike Sexton
57. Sam Simon
58. Dan Smith
59. Justin Smith
60. Jason Somerville
61. Jennifer Tilly
62. Yevgeniy Timoshenko
63. David Williams
64. WSOP.com Qualifier
