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2009 NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship
$20,000 Heads-up Championship
Day: 3
Event Info
Final Results
Event Info
2009 NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship
Buy-in
$20,000
Entries
64
On the other side of the room, Daniel Negreanu is watching the proceedings with an interested air but perhaps not as much as Chad Brown, whose fiancee is playing for a berth in the final.
For the best-of-three final, the stacks will be 640,000 with starting blinds of 5,000 and 10,000.
Phil Hellmuth and Bertrand Grospellier one-upped the early draw when their match got underway just after 1pm. They got all their chips in on the fifth hand, with Hellmuth's pocket queens going down in flames to Grospellier's pocket aces. Vanessa Rousso and Daniel Negreanu provided a bit more play for the gallery and the NBC cameras. Negreanu took a 3-to-1 chip lead in the early stages of the match, but two ill-advised calls wound up costing him his whole stack and a place in the semifinals.
And so the semifinals are set. It's Team PokerStars on the black side of the bracket and Team "Old School" on the red side. Rousso and Grospellier will play for a spot in the finals against the winner of Farha v. Seed. Those matches were originally scheduled to begin at 4:45pm, but play has been so fast today that they will likely begin closer to 3:30pm.
See you then!
Negreanu made it 12,000 to go from the button and Rousso called. The flop came down
and Rousso checked to Negreanu, who fired a continuation bet worth 12,000. Rousso countered with a check-raise, making it an additional 13,000 for Negreanu to call and call he did.The
was the next card off the deck, and Rousso chose to pass the first action to Negreanu, who bet 28,000. Rousso immediately moved all in, sending a visibly perplexed Negreanu into the tank."Blech!" said Negreanu, while executing a vomiting motion. "Yuck, I'm so gonna lose right now!"
After a solid four minutes in the tank, Negreanu emerged with a call and Rousso quickly tabled
for a full house."I need a six or a three" said Negreanu, as he revealed his own hand --
.He'd get neither as the
fell on the river completing the board and Rousso took down the pot and the match with deuces full.After a quick post-match interview with Leeaan Tweeden, Daniel graciously posed for photos with a large group of fans, while Vanessa left the set to prepare for her upcoming semifinal match against fellow Team PokerStars Pro Bertrand 'ElkY' Grospellier.
. When the turn came 
, Rousso, the first player to act, moved all in."Why oh why would you do that?" Negreanu asked Rousso. He could be seen trying to puzzle it out. "I could be drawing dead here."
"I don't have a jack, that's clear," Daniel joked with the crowd.
Negreanu finally made the call with
and was shown that his fear was correct -- he was drawing dead against Rousso's 
. Rousso unnecessarily paired her kicker with the river 
. With that double-up, she has just about leveled the match.
, Vanessa Rousso asked how much Negreanu had in his stack before checking. Negreanu bet 28,000 and Rousso, after a few moments of thoughts, called. A ripple passed through the gallery as the two players took a river of . Rousso studied the board for twenty seconds before checking. Negreanu fired again for 30,000 and took down the pot. He now has the chip lead.