NBC Heads Up Championship First Round Matches Drawn

The 2009 NBC National Heads up Championship first round matches have been drawn and were announced at the big launch party held at PURE night club in Caesars Palace.  You can check out the profiles for the 2009 players as well as learn more about the history on the NBC Heads Up Championship at NBC’s website.  The first round matches are all set to take place on Friday, March 6.  The round of 32 and the sweet 16 will take place on Saturday, March 7 and the much anticipated elite eight, final four and championship match will all take place on Sunday, March 8.

Below are the first round match ups for the NBC National Heads Up Championship:

Hearts Bracket - Begins play at 12:15 p.m. Winner of the hearts bracket will play the winner of the diamonds bracket.

Johnny Chan vs. Eli Elezra
Erick Lindgren vs. Howard Lederer
J.C. Tran vs. David Williams
Jamie Gold vs. Scott Fischman
Erik Seidel vs. John Phan
Jerry Yang vs. Clonie Gowen
Allen Cunningham vs. Sam Farha
Andy Bloch vs. Peter Eastgate

Diamonds Bracket - Begins play at 2:45 p.m. Winner of the diamonds bracket plays the winner of the hearts bracket.
Kenny Tran vs. Antonio Esfandiari
Greg Raymer vs. Jennifer Harman
Kenny Yeh vs. Phil Laak
Vanessa Selbst vs. Layne Flack
David Benyamine vs. Gus Hansen
Huck Seed vs. Jonathan Little
Chad Brown vs. Glen Chorny
Annie Duke vs. Brad Garrett

Clubs Bracket - Begins play at 5:45 p.m. Winner of the clubs bracket plays the winner of the spades bracket.
Don Cheadle vs. David Pham
Paul Wasicka vs. Nicholas Joy

Jennifer Tilly vs. Phil Ivey
Doyle Brunson vs. Vanessa Rousso
Hevad Khan vs. Scotty Nguyen
Ted Forrest vs. Orel Hershiser
Daniel Negreanu vs. Chris Moneymaker
Mike Matusow vs. Dario Minieri

Spades Bracket - Begins play at 8:15 p.m. Winner of the spades bracket plays the winner of the clubs bracket.
Gabe Kaplan vs. Chris Ferguson
John Juanda vs. Joe Hachem
Ilari Sahamies vs. Gavin Smith
Fred Collins vs. Bertrand Grospellier
Jeffrey Ishbia vs. Leon Yanovski
Mike Sexton vs. Phil Hellmuth
Gavin Griffin vs. Tom Dwan
Barry Greenstein vs. Blandino Gines