«

Heads-Up Team Breakdown

by , Mar 3, 2010 | 8:31 pm

Comments (21)

We’ll be seeing the brackets for the National Heads-Up Poker Championship soon (drawing party is tomorrow) … and with some help from KevMath, I put together a list of who’s going to be represented at the mini-tables in this made-for-TV event. The list isn’t complete — feel free to let me know if we missed any representatives that are already settled and we’ll update accordingly — but it does give an interesting snapshot of where things stand in the competitive online poker landscape-dot-net circa early 2010.

Totals:

Full Tilt – 21
PokerStars – 15
UB – 4
Victory Poker – 2
PartyPoker – 2
Doyle’s Room – 1
Bodog – 1
Betfair – 1
Expect – 1
bet365 – 1
Cake (Unabomber Poker) -1
Non-Poker (GoDaddy) -1
Unknown / Undecided / For Sale – 8

Should be interesting to see how at least a few of these unknowns end up. (Darvin Moon, for example, and Jamie Gold.) Click below for a breakdown by player …


The entire field (alphabetical order):

Patrik Antonius – Full Tilt
Eric Baldwin – UB
Andy Bloch – Full Tilt
Doyle Brunson – Doyle’s Room
Joe Cada – PokerStars
Johnny Chan – ???
Don Cheadle – Full Tilt
Allen Cunningham – Full Tilt
Pieter de Korver – PokerStars
Annie Duke – UB
Tom Dwan – Full Tilt
Peter Eastgate – PokerStars
Eli Elezra – Full Tilt
Antonio Esfandiari – Victory Poker
Sam Farha – ???
Chris Ferguson -Full Tilt
Ted Forrest – Full Tilt
Jamie Gold – ???
Phil Gordon – Full Tilt
Barry Greenstein – PokerStars
Bertrand Grospellier – PokerStars
Joe Hachem – PokerSTars
Gus Hansen – Full Tilt
Jennifer Harman – Full Tilt
Phil Hellmuth – UB
Orel Hershiser – PokerStars
Jesper Hougaard – bet365
Phil Ivey – Full Tilt
John Juanda – Full Tilt
Gabe Kaplan – ???
John Paul Kelly – PokerStars
Phil Laak – UnabomberPoker (Cake)
Howard Lederer – Full Tilt
Erick Lindgren – Full Tilt
Mike Matusow – Full Tilt
Jason Mercier – PokerStars
Dario Minieri – PokerStars
Chris Moneymaker – PokerStars
Darvin Moon – ???
Greg Mueller – Full Tilt
Daniel Negreanu – PokerStars
Scotty Nguyen – Expekt (?)
Annette Obrestad – Betfair
Brock Parker – ???
Dennis Phillips – PokerStars
Greg Raymer – PokerStars
Shawn Rice – UB
Vanessa Rousso – GoDaddy / PokerStars
Kara Scott – PartyPoker
Huck Seed – Full Tilt
Erik Seidel – Full Tilt
Mike Sexton – PartyPoker
Gavin Smith – Full Tilt
Jennifer Tilly – ???
Paul Wasicka – Victory Poker
David Williams – Bodog
Leo Wolpert – ???
Jerry Yang – Full Tilt
ONLINE QUALIFIERS (7)


Tags: , , , ,

21 Comments to “Heads-Up Team Breakdown”


  1. Kevin Mathers     says:
    March 3rd, 2010 at 8:44pm

    One of the “online” qualifiers was Shawn Rice, who’ll be representing UB. Upon further reflection, Gabe may be sporting Doyle’s Room gear, like he has in the past.

    Also, have you and the peeps over at ESPN.com ranked the field from 1-64, like last year?


  2. S77     says:
    March 3rd, 2010 at 9:22pm

    Eli Elezra’s a Tilt pro, no?


  3. Kevin Mathers     says:
    March 3rd, 2010 at 9:29pm

    He’s currently listed as one, yes.


  4. DanM     says:
    March 3rd, 2010 at 9:50pm

    i’ll update elezra. Kevmath and I did this off the top of our heads. I did a touch of research to check on Scotty Nguyen. Seems wrong, btw, that Hoyt Corkins isn’t in the line-up repping Doyle’s Room.

    As we update this, let’s note with a (1) anyone who logos up but on a one-time deal.


  5. DanM     says:
    March 3rd, 2010 at 10:00pm

    Kevin, any chance you can be here in 24 hours? I’ve got some requests to meet you at the drawing party.


  6. DanM     says:
    March 3rd, 2010 at 10:22pm

    btw, to answer your original question KM, did we do that kinda ranking last year? i don’t think we did that until at least after the brackets were out (if at all).

    also, i’m pretty sure Shawn Rice was a Caesar’s qualifier, not an online qualifier.


  7. Kevin Mathers     says:
    March 4th, 2010 at 5:45am

    The chance would be -100%.

    Correct on Rice winning his qualifier at Caesars, as two of those 7 listed as “online” were at a brick and mortar location.

    Rankings from last year:

    http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/poker/columns/story?columnist=feldman_andrew&id=3947016


  8. Andrew     says:
    March 4th, 2010 at 11:31am

    Shouldn’t we assume Jennifer Tilly will represent Unabomberpoker?


  9. DanM     says:
    March 4th, 2010 at 11:40am

    we don’t assume things at pokerati, feldman. we speculate wildly check our facts, lol. not saying she won’t be, but if i’d have to bet i’d think full tilt — didn’t she rep them before?


  10. Kevin Mathers     says:
    March 4th, 2010 at 11:38am

    3% chance she’s wearing that logo, at best.


  11. Andrew     says:
    March 4th, 2010 at 12:40pm

    But Laak never had his own site before…


  12. S77     says:
    March 4th, 2010 at 3:55pm

    Just remembered that Yang’s been listed as a “Friend of Full Tilt” on their site for some time now. Likely he reps them?


  13. S77     says:
    March 4th, 2010 at 3:57pm

    And I agree on Corkins – was really surprised to see him omitted, given recent results.


  14. DanM     says:
    March 4th, 2010 at 4:11pm

    I think you’re right about Yang … i’ll go ahead and add him to Full Tilt unltess we learn otherwise. Was thinking Stars might go after him just for the champion-sake. But no he’s been a distant cousin to the Full Tilt family since the start.


  15. Kevin Mathers     says:
    March 4th, 2010 at 4:38pm

    FTP seems to keep him around as a “friend” since he’s their only ME winner in the Moneymaker era.


  16. Emma Fryer     says:
    March 5th, 2010 at 6:44am

    Jesper Hougaard – bet365


  17. Kevin Mathers     says:
    March 5th, 2010 at 7:38am

    Darvin Moon was spotted wearing his New Orleans Saints hat last night, so apparently still sponsorless.


  18. h     says:
    March 5th, 2010 at 6:56pm

    Kevin Mathers says:
    March 4th, 2010 at 11:38 am

    3% chance she’s wearing that logo, at best.


  19. S77     says:
    March 6th, 2010 at 12:49pm

    Re Darvin Moon – Just saw a picture of him from this event and noticed he’s wearing a Wheeling Island (WV) Casino (where he won his Main Event seat) shirt, as he was during (throughout?) the ME. Maybe not the same as a sponsorship, but similar? Or just doing a favor? He did lend his name to a tourney series there not so long ago as well. A minor detail, but seemed interesting to me, as it’s been consistent, and especially since he’s always been so anti-sponsor.


  20. Kevin Mathers     says:
    March 6th, 2010 at 12:58pm

    I don’t know if he’s necessarily anti-sponsor, he just wants to get paid a lot of money for wearing one, especially for an online site.

    P.S. Fixed the issue of duplicate comments.


  21. S77     says:
    March 6th, 2010 at 2:48pm

    Thanks for fixing. Yes, you’re right – not so much anti-sponsor, but not wanting to be beholden to one company for the long term. More than anything, he just strikes me as not really caring either way.