Bodog Beat

Poker pro Chris "Jesus" Ferguson will be featured on this week's episodes of Poker After Dark. (Bodog Beat Image)

NBC's late night poker show, Poker After Dark, always tries to come up with interesting themes that pull together a seemingly disparate group of players for a week of poker at the same table. Previous themes have included "Internationals" with Mike Matusow, Doyle Brunson and Daniel Negreanu; "19th Hole" with Phil Ivey, Erick Lindgren and Gavin Smith; and "Poker Brat Attack" with Gus Hansen, Annie Duke and Shawn Sheikan. This week's episodes will feature "World Champions" Chris Ferguson, Johnny Chan, Berry Johnston, Jamie Gold, Huck Seed and Phil Hellmuth.

While all of these players have won a WSOP Main Event, hence the "World Champions" moniker, Chan has the distinction of having won two of them back to back in '87 and '88. On the other hand, Hellmuth holds a different kind of advantage. He may only have one Main Event bracelet (1989), but there are ten other WSOP bracelets around his wrist from other events, the current world record.

Johnston is not as familiar a name but he is a legend of the game and is in the Poker Hall of Fame along with many of the fathers of the modern game of poker. He won his Main Event in 1986. Ten years later Huck Seed took down the Main Event and, according to the PAD website, also won a prop bet for standing on his head for 50 minutes, something that is sure to come in handy against this caliber of competition.

When Ferguson won the WSOP Main Event in 2000, he set a record for the highest payout in WSOP history at $1.5 million. Six years and an astronomical growth in poker's popularity later, 2006 WSOP Main Event champ Gold set another new record for the WSOP Main Event payout when he took home $12 million for his win, a record that still stands.

The show appeals mainly to insomniac poker players, a larger demo than one would think, as it airs at 2:05am and runs Monday through Saturday.

If you want a chance to be featured on Poker After Dark as a WSOP Main Event champion, then get started on your way by qualifying online for the 2008 WSOP Main Event through Bodog Poker. Daily qualifiers start for as little as $1 and during the month of February three packages are available every week.