NBC Heads Up Championship Round 2 Oppositions

The NBC Heads Up Championship kicked off yesterday with some very interesting oppositions, and already a few surprises. Yevgeniy Timoshenko (GPI#110), the young and very talented player from Ukraine, was eliminated by Vanessa Rousso (GPI#950). She will have a very difficult round 2 against Shaun Deeb (GPI#91), but she proved that she was capable of playing anybody!

A very interesting heads up will take place between Antonio Esfandiari (GPI#71), winner of the now very popular Big One for One Drop 1 million dollars buy in tournament, and former WSOP Main Event winner, Jonathan Duhamel (GPI#43). The winner will get to play either online legend Daniel Cates (unranked), or Chris Moorman (GPI#182).

On top of the GPI rankings, the most promising HU was taking place between Dan Smithh (GPI#1), and Jason Mercier, GPI#3). The Player of the Year 2012 took the best against the Pokerstars Pro, and will face the young French woman Gaelle Baumann (GPI#559) in the next round. Baumann recently placed 10th at the 2012 WSOP Main Event.

Other notable HU matches will see Chris Moneymaker (GPI#1200) playing against David Sands (GPI#9) (who replaced Daniel Negreanu the day before the championship), Tom Dwan (GPI#3519) against Doyle Brunson (GPI#4228) or Phil Galfond (GPI#2276) against Eugene Katchalov (GPI#20).

Here are all the round 2 oppositions, including the GPI rank of each player: