The NBC National Heads Up Championship starts today and the first round match-ups were announced at the draw party at PURE night club in Las Vegas.

There's a number of interesting matches coming up, though that is stating the obvious when the field is full of poker greats. One notable presence is Doyle Brunson, who had earlier stated on his blog that he intends to withdraw from the tournament.

"Granted, I won’t be at my best, but I can put my game on auto-pilot and be competitive in that format. The antes and blinds have to go up very fast and that means whoever wins needs a lot of luck," Brunson says on Doylesroom.com.

To get to the Sunday's final, you have to beat five opponents. The players are drawn into four brackets with one player from each bracket making it to the semifinals. The match-ups are:

Club Bracket

Patrik Antonius vs Chris Moneymaker
Leo Wolpert vs Eric Baldwin
David Williams vs Joe Cada
Erik Seidel vs Huck Seed
Dan Ramirez vs Erick Lindgren
Peter Eastgate vs Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier
Stephen Quinn vs Ted Forrest
Dario Minieri vs Jamie Gold

Spade Bracket

Gavin Smith vs Phil Ivey
Richard Edwards vs Scotty Nguyen
Shawn Rice vs Joe Hachem
Gabe Kaplan vs Johnny Chan
Daniel Negreanu vs Jason Mercier
Pieter de Korver vs Mike Sexton
Phil Gordon vs Tom Dwan
Phil Laak vs John Juanda

Heart Bracket

Jesper Hougaard vs Allen Cunningham
Eli Elezra vs Greg Mueller
Annette Dworksi vs Chris Ferguson
Kara Scott vs Dennis Phillips
Brock Parker vs Doyle Brunson
JP Kelly vs Don Cheadle
Howard Lederer vs Phil Hellmuth
Annette Obrestad vs Orel Hershiser

Diamond Bracket

Barry Greenstein vs Vanessa Rousso
Sam Farha vs Antonio Esfandiari
Jennifer Harman vs Jennifer Tilly
Jerry Yang vs Mike Matusow
Darvin Moon vs Bill Huntress
Andy Bloch vs Annie Duke
Andrew Wilson vs Paul Wasicka
Gus Hansen vs Greg Raymer