Annie Duke Wins NBC Head-Up Championship

The spectacular trophy and the $500,000 pile of cash in front of her were enough reasons for Annie Duke to rejoice in winning the NBC Head-Up Poker Championship on Sunday night.

But it certainly wasn’t only because of this that Duke was thrilled to take out good friend Eric Sidel in the best-of-three final, which took more than three and a half hours. 슬롯머신

For Duke, the title victory, which has become one of the most coveted titles in the game, was about more than hardware and cash. This helped her prove some critics wrong. This gave her another barrier to women in poker and another to older professionals in the game. Of course, she was able to get some revenge through certain networks.

“I finally don’t have to be satisfied with second place on NBC,” Duke laughed loudly before the ceremony, referring to last year’s appearance on “Celebrity Apprentice,” which was the runner-up to rival Joan Rivers on Donald Trump’s reality TV show. “This time, I feel good because it wasn’t up to somebody sitting across the table. It was up to me.”

Duke was smiling when he made his point, but he was sure he wasn’t joking. The longtime poker pro is as competitive as her competitors come, and the longer she speaks to the media after the win, the better you will see how satisfying this victory was for her.

“I’ve had a lot of time off at poker for the last year or so and I’ve been getting a little bit of criticism for that,” said Duke, who is still involved in teaching poker and running charity circuits but didn’t participate in many events for five months from October last year to February 2010. “People have said I’m not a poker player anymore and I’m just focused on everything else that’s going on in my life.

“However, you know what? The breaks helped me refocus. They made me realize that my priority was family and then poker. I don’t like to be blamed for it. So I’m back hungry more than ever to see that hunger leads to big wins like this… I feel really, really good.”