The list of names of the 37 players invited to participate in the next edition of the National Heads-Up Poker Championship was just released. The event will heat up with a preliminary party at the nightclub Pure inside Caesars Palace in Las Vegas starting next February 28^th. The tournament starts on March 1^st and it will run for three days. Each player will put up $20,000 in an attempt to win the $500,000 first place prize money and lay claim to the title and the bragging rights associated with defeating one of the most difficult fields ever assembled.

This is a tournament that brings a lot of attention due its list of special participants, including the most famous poker players over the planet. The tournament will count with the presence of several first time invitees including Bill Edler, a poker player that had several successful participations in poker tournaments during the 2007 and Kenny Tran, who went deep in the 2007 World Series of Poker Main Event, $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event, and WSOPE Main Event. The list released includes all the players that have been invited, but their participation has not yet been confirmed.

The players invited to this amazing poker event are:

Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan, Annie Duke, Shannon Elizabeth, Antonio Esfandiari, Chris Ferguson, Ted Forrest, Jamie Gold, Barry Greenstein, Jennifer Harman, Phil Ivey, Howard Lederer, Erick Lindgren, Jonathan Little, Mike Matusow, Scotty Nguyen, Gavin Smith, Brian Townsend, Paul Wasicka, Jerry Yang, 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

The rest of the invitations will be sent out by the end of this month, we will be giving more information as soon as the rest of the names are released. The names invited to this tournament can make you think that this is going to be one of the hottest events of the first quarter of the upcoming year. There are still 24 names that are going to be added to the list, with the final 3 spots being filled by special online and CaesarsPalace qualifiers.