Seidel wins NBC Heads-Up Poker Championship

What a 2011 Team Full Tilt Poker Pro Erik Seidel is having, and we are barely into March! Seidel’s latest accomplishment was winning the 2011 NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship -the tournament he finished as the runner-up to Annie Duke last year. The 2011 Heads-Up Poker Championship is just the latest feather Seidel can add to his cap, with quite a few coming in early 2011.

Seidel’s path to the NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship included beating some of the biggest names in poker:

• Round 1: Defeated fellow Team Full Tilt Pro Allen Cunningham
• Round 2: Defeated another Team Full Tilt Pro Jennifer Harman
• Sweet Sixteen: Defeated yet another Team Full Tilt Pro Phil Gordon
• Elite Eight: Defeated Team PokerStars Pro Vanessa Selbst
• Final Four: Defeated Victory Poker Pro Andrew Robl
• Finals: Defeated Team PokerStars Pro and 2003 WSOP Champion Chris Moneymaker 2-0

Seidel picked up $750,000 in prize-money for the win which has pushed his 2011 winnings over the $4 million mark up to this point, an almost unbelievable amount to have earned before the World Series of Poker has even kicked off. Considering the WSOP is still over two months away, Seidel has a chance to have the most successful tournament season of all-time even if he bombs out of the Main Event -I can’t even believe a player may earn $10+ million without cashing in the WSOP Main Event.

Moneymaker picked up $300,000 for his second place finish in the tournament and defeated John Racener, Daniel ‘jungleman12′ Cates, Doyle Brunson, David Oppenheim, and Jonathan Duhamel along the way.

Most of Seidel’s wins in 2011 have come in small field, high buy-in, tournaments -High-Roller events and Heads-Up tournaments. In addition to the NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship, Seidel’s 2011 accomplishments include:

• 3^rd place in the $5k 6-max NLHE tournament at the PokerStars PCA — $46,560
• 4^th place in the $25k NLHE High-Roller tournament at the PokerStars PCA — $295,960
• 3^rd place in the $100k Poker Challenge at the Aussie Millions — $618,139
• 1^st place in the $250k Super-High-roller tournament at the Aussie Millions — $2,472,555
• 5^th place in the $5,100 Heads-Up Championship at the LA Poker Classic — $14,500
• 1^st place in the $25k High-Roller tournament at the LA Poker Classic — $144,570

The win also saw Seidel overtake Daniel Negreanu on the all-time money list with $14,697,297. Seidel not only tops the all-time money list for all events (open and invitational), but also for Open Events only at $13,691,312 -but he falls down the leader-board when you eliminate tournaments with buy-ins in excess of $50,000 according to www.thehendonmob.com.