Peacock, PokerGO, PokerStars Bringing Back National Heads-Up Poker Championship

The early days of the poker boom were marked by, among other things, a mad scramble by TV networks to find creative ways to add poker shows to their programming schedules.

The Travel Channel had the World Poker Tour, and ESPN had the World Series of Poker. From the moment network executives starting seeing the ratings numbers not just for Chris Moneymaker’s 2003 WSOP Main Event win, but for reruns of Moneymaker’s win, the poker programming pitch war was on.

There was Bravo’s Celebrity Poker Showdown, starting in 2003. There was ESPN’s scripted series Tilt, filmed in 2004 and airing in early 2005. And there was major broadcast network NBC taking the leap with a new tournament called the National Heads-Up Poker Championship (NHUPC), which premiered in May 2005.

It’s now been a dozen years since the last edition of the NHUPC, but the franchise has been revived, poker production company PokerGO announced Monday, and it’s coming to NBC’s streaming arm, Peacock.

PokerGO recently purchased the NHUPC brand and its archived content from NBC Sports. With online poker site PokerStars signed on as the main sponsor, the single-elimination, bracket-style tournament returns this fall. After it premieres on Peacock (exact dates not yet announced), it will later become available to stream on PokerGO and through PokerStars’ media channels.

“The National Heads-Up Poker Championship helped define the golden era of televised poker,” PokerGO President Mori Eskandani said in a press release. “We’re proud to partner with PokerStars to bring back a truly iconic brand and share it with a new generation of fans.”

Eight pros, six celebs announced so far

As in the past, the tournament has a $25,000 buy-in. Previous editions — from 2005 to 2013, with a year off in 2012 following online poker’s “Black Friday” — featured 64 entrants competing in heads-up matches, with the final round contested in a best-of-three format.

The invitation-only field was always comprised mostly of big-name poker pros, with a handful of poker-playing celebrities sprinkled in. Among the latter group in the early years were actors James Woods, Shannon Elizabeth, Don Cheadle, and Jennifer Tilly, and retired baseball star Orel Hershiser.

PokerGO announced 14 players for the 2025 edition, six of whom fit the celebrity category: former NFL player Richard Seymour, comedian/actor Rob Riggle, sports analyst Nick Wright, influencer Bryce Hall, and reality TV stars T.J. Lavin and “Boston Rob” Mariano.

The poker pros confirmed in the field are Moneymaker, Jason Koon, Liv Boeree, Erik Seidel, Doug Polk, Phil Galfond, Shaun Deeb, and the man of the moment in the poker world, WSOP champ Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi.

Phil Hellmuth defeated Chris Ferguson in the finals of the inaugural NHUPC on NBC in 2005, and Ferguson lost again in the finals in 2006 to Ted Forrest. Ferguson got over the hump in 2008, making his third finals in four years and beating Andy Bloch.

Other past champions include Paul Wasicka (2007), Huck Seed (2009), Annie Duke (2010), Seidel (2011), and Mike Matusow (2013).

The 2005 edition was filmed at Golden Nugget Las Vegas, and all subsequent versions were held at Caesars Palace Las Vegas. The location for this year has not been announced.

In past years, there was no seeding of players — just a random draw conducted during a party the night before the tournament began, with all players in attendance.

Sponsor PokerStars is regulated in three U.S. states: New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. The New Jersey and Michigan player pools are merged, but PokerStars has not yet integrated its Pennsylvania operation into its multi-state pooling.