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Bracket Released for National Heads-Up Championship

It’s the poker world’s version of March Madness — the bracket is now set for the $25,000 National Heads-up Poker Championship.

You can see all the first-round matchups below. The 64-player tournament starts today at 1 p.m., and concludes on March 7. All action takes place at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. You’ll eventually be able to watch all the action on NBC starting April 18th

The draw was done on Thursday night at Caesar’s Pure nightclub. Without further ado, here are the matchups.

Club Bracket
Patrik Antonius vs. Chris Moneymaker
Leo Wolpert vs. Eric Baldwin
David Williams vs Joe Cada
Erik Seidel vs. Huck Seed
Dan Ramirez vs. Erick Lindgren
Peter Eastgate vs. Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier
Stephen Quinn vs. Ted Forrest
Dario Minieri vs. Jamie Gold

Spade Bracket
Gavin Smith vs. Phil Ivey
Richard Edwards vs. Scotty Nguyen
Shawn Rice vs. Joe Hachem
Gabe Kaplan vs. Johnny Chan
Daniel Negreanu vs. Jason Mercier
Pieter de Korver vs. Mike Sexton
Phil Gordon vs. Tom Dwan
Phil Laak vs. John Juanda

Heart Bracket
Jesper Hougaard vs. Allen Cunningham
Eli Elezra vs. Greg Mueller
Annette Dworksi vs. Chris Ferguson
Kara Scott vs. Dennis Phillips
Brock Parker vs. Doyle Brunson
JP Kelly vs. Don Cheadle
Howard Lederer vs. Phil Hellmuth
Annette Obrestad vs. Orel Hershiser

Diamond Bracket
Barry Greenstein vs. Vanessa Rousso
Sam Farha vs. Antonio Esfandiari
Jennifer Harman vs. Jennifer Tilly
Jerry Yang vs. Mike Matusow
Darvin Moon vs. Bill Huntress
Andy Bloch vs. Annie Duke
Andrew Wilson vs. Paul Wasicka
Gus Hansen vs. Greg Raymer

A few interesting notes from the draw:
– Negreanu and Mercier both made this year’s final table of the World Series of Poker Europe, but face each other in the first round.
–The Spade bracket seems to be the toughest to get out of, with Ivey, Negreanu, Dwan and Juanda, among a lot of other talented players.
–WSOP main event champion and runner-up from last year, Cada and Moon, are on different sides of the bracket. So they could theoretically meet in the final.
–There are seven women in the field, and two of them meet in the first round (Harman and Tilly).
–The bracket has a lot of Americans in it, but the first round sees a couple of Euros square off: Eastgate takes on ElkY.

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