More Invites Out for Heads-Up Championship

Last week, NBC sent out the first twenty invitations to players to participate in the 2008 National Heads-Up Poker Championship, which will be held February 29^th through March 2^nd at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. 

Yesterday, NBC announced that seventeen more players have been invited.  Should all invitees accept, the field will stand at thirty-seven, leaving twenty-seven spots open.  Three of those seats will go to special online and Caesars qualifiers. 

So far, the cast of characters is fairly standard.  Some new faces include Bill Edler, who won Bluff’s Player of the Year award, Kenny Tran, who made impressive runs in both the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event and Main event at the 2007 WSOP, and David “The Dragon” Pham, who was recently named Card Player’s Player of the Year. 

Conspicuously absent from the list of invitees so far are Phil Hellmuth, who opted to play in a tournament in the U.K. last year, as well as Allen Cunningham and T.J. Cloutier.

The newest invitees are as follows: 

David Benyamine
Chad Brown
Todd Brunson
Freddy Deeb
Bill Edler
Eli Elezra
Clonie Gowen
John Juanda
Phil Laak
Daniel Negreanu
David Pham
Greg Raymer
Vanessa Rousso
Erik Seidel
Shawn Sheikhan
Kenny Tran
David Williams