Winner will appear on NBC televised series and play against 63 of poker’s best players vying for the $500,000 grand prize
(Las Vegas, NV, February 22, 2010) Fort Dodge, Iowa native Dan Ramirez won the chance to appear on NBC’s National Heads Up Poker Championship this upcoming March. Ramirez outplayed a field of thousands of online poker players to earn one of the 64 coveted seats at the National Heads Up Poker Championship (NHPC). Ramirez won the prize playing on the Zen Gaming Network which powers free-to-play gaming sites like the NBCSports.com Poker Room, along with many others.
The annual event is held at Caesars Palace Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, NV from March 4th to March 7th and will be televised in a 6-episode series beginning April 18th on NBC.
“I have recently had eye-surgery so I have been able to play a lot of online poker while recovering,” Ramirez said. “I am so excited to play against many of the people I watch on TV. I am a huge poker fan. I first registered in October and now I’m going to Las Vegas to play against the pros for a chance at $500,000! It’s just unbelievable…this is a once in a lifetime opportunity!”
The final tournament started slowly for Ramirez who kept telling himself that he had learned how to be patient playing on the Zen Gaming Network. “I was card dead for about an hour,” he noted. “I just assumed I was out of luck when I turned it around and doubled through twice. The tide-shifting hand was later when Ramirez, with about 50,000 chips, raised with A-K on the button and was pushed all in by the big blind’s A-Q. Ramirez’s hand held up, he established the chip lead, and never relinquished it.
Ramirez road gets tougher. He will face stiff competition at the NHPC, as some of the world’s best known players will be in attendance including 11-time World Series of Poker Champion Phil Hellmuth, 7-time bracelet winner Phil Ivey, and former NHPC winners Chris Ferguson and Huck Seed. The single-elimination, bracket-style tournament is modeled after the college basketball championship. Players who win a match advance to the next round; the player who wins six matches in a row is crowned champion.
“We wanted to add a wild-card entry into this year’s competition” said Mori Eskandani, President of POKER PROductions, “We loved the software platform and introduced it to NBCSports.com who joined the Zen Network shortly thereafter. This contest has provided Americans the chance at fame, fortune and access to high-drama poker action. Dan has demonstrated through his online play that this year, he could be a force to be reckoned with.”
About Zen Gaming:
The Zen Gaming Network offers a proprietary poker software platform to provide free-to-play competitive online contests that are US-legal. Players at its National League of Poker Site (www.nlop.com ) and other Zen partner sites never pay any money to play, opting for a free ‘advergaming’ environment where prizes are underwritten by sponsors and advertisers. In 2009, Zen awarded over $750,000 in cash and prizes to its network of players and partners as well as becoming a Top 10,000 site according to industry traffic-tracking source Quantcasttm.
About the National Heads-Up Poker Championship:
The National Heads-Up Poker Championship is an annual poker tournament held in the United States and produced by the NBC television network. It is a $20,000 buy-in invitation-only tournament organized as a series of one-on-one matches of No Limit Texas Hold 'em. The participants include many of the world's best poker players. POKER PROductions assists NBC with the production.
| For information please contact: Mori Eskandani President, POKER PROductions (702) 838-2594 |
For Immediate Release: Vince Zaldivar, President Zen Gaming (702) 586-8428 |
