The Week In Poker - Charity Tournaments, Sexy Voices, NBC Heads-Up and Party Gaming Settlement

For the next 6 weeks, 64 pros will battle it out every Sunday for the 5th NBC Heads-Up Poker championship (NHPC). The event was filmed last month at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas.

For the record, I know who won, but I won’t spoil it for anyone. Instead, you’ll find a link below to the result if you are interested.

Winners of the NBC Heads-Up Championship:

• 2009 - If you want to know who won - you can find the winner here.
• 2008 - Chris Ferguson
• 2007 - Paul Wasicka
• 2006 - Ted Forrest
• 2005 - Phil Helmuth

Girls of Poker finishes at the NHPC:

• Shannon Elizabeth reached the semi-final round in 2007.
• Annie Duke reached the second round in 2007, but has failed to make it past the first round in each other year.
• Evelyn Ng has only played in two years (2005, 2006), but interestingly she was knocked out of the first round in 2006 by her teenage love Daniel Negreanu.
• Jennifer Harman reached the 2nd round in 2005 and 2009.
• Jennifer Tilly has made 4 appearances, but failed to progress past the first round.
• Vanessa Rousso came second in in the 2009 event. To find out who she lost to - find the winner here.
• Clonie Gowen made it to the second round in 2008.

The celebrity line up was announced Friday, and the charity poker event will include a red carpet walk where the celebrities make their entrance with animal escorts. The event will bring together famous poker stars, celebrities and of course the animals that event seeks to benefit.

Satellites are available for the public to join in on the action, running at The Venetian in Vegas for $300 + $30.

Confirmed celebrity appearances are:

• Nancy “The Voice of Bart Simpson” Cartwright
• Daniel Negreanu
• Phil Ivey
• Erica Schoenberg
• Dancing With the Stars’ Karina Smirnoff
• Doyle Brunson

Electronic Arts has just announced a new element in the recently released Godfather II video game. It allows players to use the networked multi-player capabilities of the console to engage in games of Texas Hold ‘Em. It’s not for real money, but it does enhance the exposure of the game for the up and coming online generation of poker players.

In a week of charity tournaments, Jason Alexander (George Costanza from the Seinfeld series) hosts a tournament in Los Angeles May 9th, at the Hollywood Park Casino

Prizes includes some cool donations:

• 1st prize - $10,000
• 2nd prize - an ECO friendly poker table by Eric Hansel, founder of EGM Green (that’s a great prize)
• 3rd prize - a WSOP Boot Camp Package from Annie Duke
• 4th prize - a poker cruise for two

Duke and family are enjoying a break in beautiful Costa Rica. Jamie Lynn and I are also in Costa Rica right now, sadly we’re not enjoying the wonderful view that Annie and family have from their villa. Apparently they are having a great time with all the monkeys coming in from the rainforest.

We’ll leave them to their vacation in the sun.

Oh, and for the record Jamie Lynn is a guy (I’ve had several guys asking after him) - so no, sadly I’m not employing any office hotties yet. That comes later.

The public company, who run PartyPoker.com are set to pay the sum as part of a “Non-Prosecution Agreement” over the next 3 years.

In a survey carried out in Australia, to find the perfect voices for a dealer in an online casino, Tilly and Connery with their twangy and distinctive vocals respectively came out the big winners.

The world’s perfect online casino would be voiced by Sean Connery and Jennifer Tilly a recent survey has revealed.

Not sure how long I’d want to listen to Tilly while losing my money, I think I’d prefer the sultry tones of Angelina Jolie doing her Lara Croft accent.