The final eight of the NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship is set, and although most of the field is considered among the top poker talent in the world, outside of 2003 WSOP Champion Chris Moneymaker, and Poker Hall of Famer Erik Seidel, the field is likely not very well-known to the poker masses.

·    Olivier Busquet – Busquet is a Sit and Go specialist online, and has been making a lot of headway in the live high-stakes cash-games, having recently appeared on Poker After Dark. Busquet’s biggest mainstream accomplishment was winning the Borgata Poker Open in 2008.

·    Jonathan Duhamel – Duhamel is the reigning WSOP Champion, and the Canadian Poker Pro is establishing himself as one of the best WSOP champions in recent years after a High-Roller win, and now a deep run in the Heads-Up Championship.

·    Chris Moneymaker – The 2003 WSOP Champ is credited with starting the poker boom, and although he has only a few poker accomplishments since then he is still the face of the industry even after nearly a decade.

·    David Oppenheim – Oppenheim is a high-stakes poker pro from California who regularly plays in the highest stakes poker games in the world. He was invited to play in the Heads-Up Championship after Howard Lederer withdrew.

·    Andrew Robl – Robl is online poker wunderkind who has been making more and more televised appearances on High Stakes Poker, Poker After Dark, and the PokerStars Big Game. The Victory Poker pro will likely standout in a crowd of Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars logos.

·    David Benyamine – Benyamine is another high-stakes playing David and is considered one of the top all-around poker players in the world. Benyamine recently won over $1 million in the $250,000 Super-High-Roller tournament at the Aussie Millions, and has nearly $6 million in live tournament winnings for his career.

·    Vanessa Selbst –Selbst had a massive 2010 tournament campaign, in addition to being signed by PoekrStars she won an NAPT tournament and the Partouche Poker Tour Grand Finale. Selbst will also have the added burden as the only woman remaining in the field.

·    Erik Seidel –Seidel is the most accomplished of the remaining players, and is also the hottest as well, having won over $3.5 million in the first two months of 2011 alone! A win by Seidel would put him ahead of Daniel Negreanu on the all-time money list; well one of the four or five different all-time money-lists anyway!

Tags: Andrew Robl, Chris Moneymaker, David Benyamine, David Oppenheim, Erik Seidel, Jonathan Duhamel, NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship, Olivier Busquet, Vanessa Selbst

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 6th, 2011 at 1:25 pm and is filed under Poker News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.