National Heads-Up Poker Championship is an annual poker tournament held in the United States. It features 64 poker players playing a series of one-on-one no limit hold'em matches until one player is left and crowned the National Heads-Up Poker Champion.

The idea for the tournament was spawned from the success of the World Heads-Up Poker Championship, held annually in Barcelona. The National Heads-Up Poker Championship is an invitation-only event. In contrast, the World Headsup Poker Championship is an open event with a maximum participation of 128 players.

The program's debut was conceived as NBC's NHL Lockout Replacement programming in 2005 after the network had lost an entire season because of the lockout, and was looking for replacement programming on weekends to fill up time, and to take advantage of the trend in poker programming.

The 2005 event took place at the Golden Nugget Las Vegas between March 4 and March 6. It aired weekly on NBC from May 1 to May 22 with commentary from Gabe Kaplan and Matt Vasgersian.

The 2006 edition took place from March 4 to 6 at Harrah's Caesars Palace on the Las Vegas Strip. NBC began its coverage by broadcasting one part of the round of 64 on April 16, 2006. The semi-final and championship matches aired May 21, 2006. Kaplan and Vasgersian returned as commentators.

Poker is a challenging game, and people like to watch challenging games on television, especially if those games involve real people playing for real money. Survivor, the Amazing Race, Jeopardy... all these are mental games with some luck element included along with the application of different skills. Poker fits in very nicely in this group.