#350 - NBC Heads-Up Championship #1 - Spades Bracket Preview

[SUBSEQUENT ADDENDUM: I just noticed - at 10:10 AM Friday, that I mixed up the hearts and spades brackets. This summary that follows is the SPADES bracket. It's the last bracket to play. I've changed references in the title but I don't know if they'll "take". These are the SPADES matches.]

I’ve just returned from the pairings party. It’s 1:30 AM and I was up at 5 AM, having driven 300 miles to get to Vegas for this show. You are going to read A LOT of material from me over the next three days. Stay tuned because there will be multiple updates daily.

Here are the previews for the spades bracket, which are scheduled to start at 7:30 PM Friday. 9 PM is my guess for the actual start time. I’m not denigrating this bracket or the players when I say this but it has the least interesting first round match-ups. That doesn’t mean those matches themselves won’t prove to be the most interesting but the other brackets are “promising” more upfront. (Incidentally, Hearts and Diamonds play each other in one semi-final; Clubs and Spades in the other.)

Spades – Round 1 Preview

Don Cheadle – Gus Hansen: For the brief time that Don Cheadle has spent around professional poker, the schedulers sure haven’t cut him any breaks. He lost a heads-up final to Andy Block in a televised tournament and beat Phil Ivey in the first round last year. Gus figures to be a very tough competitor in this kind of event but hasn’t gotten deep yet. Cheadle in yet another upset? He studies the game and is very serious about performing his best in televised poker events. But maybe Gus is due.

Scotty Nguyen – Bill Edler. Edler has mucho game but Scotty has mucho mojo. Scotty.

Jerry Yang – Chris Moneymaker: OK, Moneymaker vs. the Moneymaker of 2007. Someone said “If Chris wants to win this, he better get some religion.” I think Moneymaker’s exemption into this event is about to run out. Before the pairings party, I was standing outside the poker room in a crowd next to T.J. and Mrs. Cloutier. Jerry Yang walked out and dove toward T.J., “Hello T.J., hello Mrs. T.J.” But he dove wide and ended up shaking hands with me instead. I think Moneymaker’s going to take this one.

David Singer – Phil Laak: Laak’s a nice guy and a good player but his exemption is running out and David Singer has become one of the most dangerous players in the world with hardly anybody noticing. Singer.

Phil Ivey – Alisha Kunze: I don’t really know anything about Alisha, which is my shortcoming, not hers. But about five minutes before Ivey’s name was drawn from the tank, Ali Nejad announced that Phil just won the WPT L.A. championship and $1.6 million. Given that he’s most peoples’ choice as the yearly favorite in this event yet hasn’t made it past the first round in three tries, Alisha has an excellent chance to upset him. (If Ivey doesn’t show, I’ve got $20,000 on deposit in the cage and am ready to jump into the game.)

David Williams – Johnny Chan: Intriguing match up. Depends on who got up on the right side of the bed. When Chan is on, he could be just about unbeatable but I don’t remember seeing that on TV in the recent past. And Williams plays such a confounding game that when he’s catching cards, he can be unbeatable. I want to pick Chan here just because I think he’s due to show off his skills.

Daniel Schrieber – TJ Cloutier: I don’t know much about Daniel, except that he’s 22 years old and TJ has markers that old. I think the old pro has enough left in the tank to win this time.

Annie Duke – JC Tran: Maybe I’m biased because I’m good friends with Annie and have so much respect for her game. And the only time I played a tournament with JC Tran he built a big stack and then got way too aggressive with it and threw it away. He has been an incredibly successful player so that’s obviously not representative but I like Duke’s chances.

Round 2 tease: Ivey v. Chan.