Caesars, Poker Stars, and Full Tilt Offer NBC Heads-Up SeatsAt Least Five of 64 Spots Available to the Casual Player |
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Chris Ferguson. Phil Hellmuth. Peter Eastgate. You?
How would you like to play — for free — for a $500,000 first prize against only 63 other players? Granted, it will be a tough field, but a freeroll for half a million dollars will get anyone’s attention.
A Las Vegas casino and the world’s two most popular poker sites are offering freerolls into NBC’s fifth-annual National Heads-Up Poker Championship.
Caesars will run its freeroll on Feb. 22 at 11 a.m. local time. To qualify, players need to log at least 40 hours of live action in the poker room between Jan. 1-31. This is 10 hours less than the 50 hours that was originally stated on the Caesars’ website.
All players qualifying for the Caesars freeroll will compete in a multi-table tournament until there are 64 players remaining. Once there are 64 players left, the remaining players will go into a heads-up bracket tournament structure and compete until there is only one person remaining.
The top 32 players make the money, with first place receiving $10,000 cash and a seat into the prestigious NBC championship (valued at $20,000). Second place receives $7,500; third and fourth place receive $6,250 each; fifth through eighth receive $3,500; ninth through 16th receive $2,500; and 17th through 32nd receive $1,000.
Caesars Palace had two seats to give away for this championship, which is being hosted in its poker room March 6-8. The casino’s marketing department has already awarded one of its high rollers its second seat.
PokerStars will also be giving away two seats at its championship freeroll on Feb. 22, with its tournament starting at 3 p.m. EST. But in order to play in the event, you need to finish at the top of two other tournaments.
The site has been running Round 1 freerolls every day since Dec. 20 at 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. EST. These freerolls will conclude on Feb. 20. If you finish in the top 200 of any Round 1 tournament, you get a seat in Round 2. You need to finish in the top 56 of Round 2, held every Saturday at 4 p.m. EST until Feb. 21, to make the Grand Final.
The Grand Final, with approximately 512 players, will award its final two players $21,000-plus prize packages that include a $20,000 NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship seat, $1,000 for traveling expenses, and up to four nights hotel accommodations at Caesars.
Full Tilt will also give away two seats to the NBC event. The site has daily Round 1 heads-up shootouts, weekly Round 2 freerolls until Feb. 21, and a final championship qualifier on Feb. 22 at 4:35 p.m. EST. Full Tilt already awarded one of its two seats in a Jan. 4 freeroll. The site estimates its prize packages at $22,000.
Although the National Heads-Up Poker Championship is considered an invitation-only tournament, a number of professional poker players have already earned automatic bids into this year’s tournament.
NBC awards automatic seats to a number of players, including the past five NBC heads-up champions, the past three WSOP main event champions, the most recent WSOP main event runner-up, the most recent WSOP Player of the Year, and the most recent Card Player Player of the Year.
After finishing second in both 2005 and 2006, Ferguson won last year’s championship, defeating Andy Bloch 2-1 in a best-of-three match.
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