The day began with eight hopefuls looking to score $750,000 and the title of 2011 NBC National Heads Up Poker Champion. The day ended as it has so many other times this year, with Erik Seidel hoisting a big trophy.
The eight-time WSOP bracelet winner just keeps on adding to his list of accomplishments and has now moved into first place on the all-time tournament earnings leaderboard ahead of Daniel Negreanu with roughly $14.7 million in career winnings.
The Full Tilt Pro has been on fire in 2011, winning three events, making six different final tables and earning nearly $4.5 million. Its a run that can only be rivaled by Negreanu’s numbers in 2004. The only difference is that Seidel has accomplished all of this in the span of just over two months.
Seidel and his appearance in the movie Rounders were a big part of the poker boom and to earn his most recent victory, he had to defeat 2003 WSOP main event champion Chris Moneymaker, the man widely credited for bringing poker into the main stream.
Moneymaker bested both David Oppenheim and Jonathan Duhamel on his way to the finals, locking up $300,000, which is the second largest score of his career. Though he fought hard in the best-of-three finals, his every move was countered with remarkable accuracy by Seidel.
Every hand was second best and every bluff was picked off. In the end, he ran right into a flopped monster and was left drawing dead by the turn.
What makes Seidel’s win even more impressive was that he finished runner-up to Annie Duke in 2010. It was an improbable back-to-back finals appearance that has only been accomplished by Chris Ferguson in the tournament’s seven-year history.
Click on the bracket below to view the final standings.
