Poker Superstars
Phil Hellmuth
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Amateur to Play Phil Ivey on NBC |
 As was announced last week, online amateur Alisha Kunze won a spot playing on the NBC Heads Up National Championship by playing in a series of tournaments on PokerStars. She will be one of two amateurs invited to the invitation only tournament where 62 other pros will go at it in a bracket style tournament to determine the National Heads Up championship. Earlier this week a pool was run to determine who would face who in the first round of the event.
In a rather harsh stroke of luck, the 23 year old amateur player Kunze pulled rights to playing heads up with none other than Phil Ivey. Out of the wide field of players, most would agree that Kunze couldn't have picked a more uphill battle to turn her win into an advance beyond the first round.
“This is a great opportunity and I’m happy to be here,” said Alisha. “Phil is an amazing player and I look forward to our match-up. I’ve had a lot of advice from some of the best here, like Greg Raymer, Joe Hachem and Daniel Negreanu. They told me to stick to my game and remember that my opponent is nameless and faceless. I just really want to face Daniel at the final table.”
This tournament comes on the heels of Ivey's recent win in the 2008 LA Poker Classic, one of the more renowned stops on the World Poker Tour. Ivey won nearly $1.6 million in the event, but it's also got people on the tour talking that Ivey might be too tired to focus too well on the new unknown player.
Several other 1st round matches were also announced at the pull:
· Daniel Negreanu vs. Michael Mizrachi
· Joe Hachem vs Mike Matusow
· Chris Moneymaker vs. Jerry Yang
· Barry Greenstein vs. Howard Lederer
· Greg Raymer vs. Hooman Nikzad
· Vanessa Rousso vs. Antonio Esfandiari
· Don Cheadle vs. Gus Hansen
· Jason Alexander vs. Huck Seed
· Orel Hershiser vs. Ted Forrest
· Daniel Schreiber vs. TJ Cloutier
· Scotty Nguyen vs. Bill Edler
Regardless of where Ivey's at, he better be ready as the event is now on. The tournament is running February 28 to March 2nd in Las Vegas. It will be broadcast on NBC in the coming months, with a broadcast schedule . |
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