Huck Seed Doesn't Win Heads Up Championship
:: snake
For various reasons, including, but not limited to, he has some wicked heads-up chops and the man is due, it was my hope and prediction that Huck Seed would take the title in this year's NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship.
But he didn't.
That honor goes to Ted Forrest, one of the best all-around poker players in the world, dominating the game of stud for years and lately showing he's a major force to be reckoned with at the NLHE table, whether 2-handed or 10-handed. Forrest defeated Chris "Walk on Water" Ferguson in a best of three heads-up contest, in which Forrest overcame a first match loss to win the two deciding matches for the championship. Ferguson, who many, including us, regard as the best heads-up player in the world, clearly lived up to his hype and ability by once again making it to the final match in this 64-player tournament in which you have to beat heads-up 5 of the world's top players over 3 days just to sit there at the end and play for the $500,000 cash and title.
And although Huck, the '96 WSOP main event champ and a 9th place finisher in the heads-up tourney last year, didn't win, I have to say I wasn't far off on my prediction.
Huck was one of my three early picks to win it all (along with Barry G and Allen C), and over at Tao of Poker, I commented that Huck was my pick out of the Elite 8 but if Ted Forrest made the final table, it was the latter's to win. Huck though couldn't get by Chris Ferguson, who I also acknowledged was an insane choice to pick against considering this guy could outplay most pros heads-up with half his brain tied behind his back.
Forrest's road to the championship was filled with the kind of seasaw battles you'd expect in heads-up contests, and his quarterfinal match against Sammy Farha was no exception as the two went at it for 3 and a half hours, the longest ever in NBC Heads-Up Championship's two-year history. Forrest then overcame near elimination in his semifinal match against Sean Sheikhan when he was the lesser stack and pushed all in with pocket fours. The Sheik, who impressively earned his place in the final four by his improbale run of victories against Doyle Brunson, Gus Hansen, David Grey and Daniel Negreanu, called with Q-J offsuit, and connected immediately and nicely with a flop of J-10-8. A miracle 4 came on the turn though to hand Ted a set and the pot. Forrest went on to eliminate a tilting Sheikhan who tried to pull a Raymer out of desperation on the final hand by loosely calling a nice preflop raise and going all in on a flop he clearly missed, but Ted's pocket kings spoiled the Sheik's streak and Ted went on for the championship.
If you can't wait for NBC's telecast, which starts April 16, to see how the hands played out, head over to CardPlayer.com's live action reports.
Btw, little point of interest regarding Huck Seed and Ted Forrest. According to Wikipedia, Forrest once bet John Hennigan $10,000 that Huck Seed's brother Leif could not run to L.A. from Las Vegas while only sleeping twice.
Question - What book was Huck Seed reading during the 2006 Heads-up Championships? I saw a picture of Huck on Flipchip's poker blog (www.lasvegasvegas.com/pokerblog) with a book sitting on his table before an early round match started. Just wondering.
Thanks,
Mac
Posted by: Mac | June 16, 2006 at 11:57 AM