Bodog Beat

TV star Brad Garrett is one of the poker playing celebrities set to play the NBC Heads-Up Poker Championship. (Bodog Beat Image)

Proving that the NBC Heads-Up Poker Championship is definitely more of a TV show than a, well, poker championship, NBC released the list of participants and it included several players who are sure to bring in viewers if not raise the quality of competition.

TV stars Jason Alexander (Seinfeld) and Brad Garrett (Everybody Loves Raymond), movie star Don Cheadle (Ocean's Thirteen and Hotel Rwanda) and baseball legend Orel Hersheiser will all be at Caesars Palace on February 29 to take part in the 64-player single elimination tournament. In the "confused" category are several poker celebs who are now more well-known as poker players than for their on-screen careers including Jennifer Tilly and Shannon Elizabeth.

The rest of the list is made up of your usual big name poker pros and include Bodog poker pro David Williams, last year's winner Paul Wasicka and 2007 WSOP Main Event champion and invisible man Jerry Yang.

The full list of players is after the jump.

Two of the 64 players will win a seat into the championship through promotional tournaments and two more will play in $540 satellites at Caesars for a seat. The rest will buy in for $20,000 each, giving first place an impressive $500,000 payday.

The tournament will be on NBC later this spring.

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1. Alexander, Jason
2. Antonius, Patrik
3. Bellande, Jean-Robert
4. Benyamine, David
5. Brown, Chad
6. Brunson, Doyle
7. Brunson, Todd
8. Chan, Johnny
9. Cheadle, Don
10. Clements, Scott
11. Cloutier, T.J.
12. Cunningham, Allen
13. Deeb, Freddy
14. Duke, Annie
15. Dwan, Tom
16. Edler, Bill
17. Elezra, Eli
18. Elizabeth, Shannon
19. Esfandiari, Antonio
20. Farha, Sam
21. Ferguson, Chris
22. Fischman, Scott
23. Forrest, Ted
24. Garrett, Brad
25. Gold, Jamie
26. Gowen, Clonie
27. Greenstein, Barry
28. Grizzle, Sam
29. Hachem, Joe
30. Hansen, Gus
31. Harman, Jennifer
32. Hellmuth, Phil
33. Hershiser, Orel
34. Ivey, Phil
35. Juanda, John
36. Kaplan, Gabe
37. Laak, Phil
38. Lederer, Howard
39. Lindgren, Erick
40. Little, Jonathan
41. Matusow, Mike
42. Mizrachi, Michael
43. Negreanu, Daniel
44. Nguyen, Scotty
45. Pham, David
46. Raymer, Greg
47. Rousso, Vanessa
48. Schneider, Tom
49. Schreiber, Daniel
50. Seed, Huck
51. Seidel, Erik
52. Singer, David
53. Smith, Gavin
54. Tilly, Jennifer
55. Townsend, Brian
56. Tran, J.C.
57. Tran, Kenny
58. Wasicka, Paul
59. Williams, David
60. Yang, Jerry