The four poker players tapped to take part are known as some of the best heads-up players in the world and they are also the last four winners of the NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship. Poker legend Phil Hellmuth won the first incarnation of the championship in 2005, Ted Forrest won the next year in 2006, Paul Wasicka took down the 2007 event and Chris "Jesus" Ferguson won this year's National Heads-Up Poker title.

Each player will be putting $50,000 on the line, and the winner will take home the entire $200,000 prize pool. The show will have a double-elimination format with the initial pairings set to be Forrest against Hellmuth and Wasicka against Ferguson.

The match began airing on NBC late night Monday at 2:05 a.m., July 28, and still has two more episodes to go in that same time slot. A special program called the “Director’s Cut” will air late night Saturday, August 2, at 1:00 a.m., right after Saturday Night Live. This show will feature a behind-the-scenes look at the week with highlights and player interviews. The episodes can also be seen at the newly-overhauled NBC Poker site.

Dwan, Robl and Townsend have recorded millions in winnings playing nosebleed-stake cash games online, frequenting $200/$400 and $300/$600 Omaha and Holdem games in which pots can reach into the hundreds of thousands. Recently, Dwan and Roble both reached final tables at the 2008 WSOP, the first available to them since they both just turned 21, proving that they can hang with the big boys.

Brunson, Chan and Seed are household names in the poker world and in mainstream culture. Between the three of them they have collected five WSOP Main Event titles, 24 WSOP bracelets and over $16 million in career tournament earnings. They have all appeared on 'Poker After Dark' previously with Chan the only three-time PAD winner in history.

As with other weeks of the show, the players will each put up $20,000 of their own money into the winner-take-all $120,000 prize, semmingly chump change to all of these guys. Makes us sick. Anyway, the episodes air on NBC, obviously, at 2:05am ET.

If these stakes are a little to high for you but you want to take on famous poker pros across the virtual felt, then check out the $3/$6 online poker tables hosted by Bodog poker pros David Williams, Justin Bonomo and Evelyn Ng at Bodog poker.

Poker pro Marco Traniello will be appearing with significant other Jennifer Harman on this week's episodes of Poker After Dark. (Bodog Beat Image)

NBC's hit late-night poker show, Poker After Dark, always has a theme for a week of episodes and, obviously, this week is no different. However, with this week's match-ups it looks like PAD is aiming for a "dump" or "get dumped" theme.

For the next five nights, or mornings depending how you look at it, three of poker's power couples will sit down at the felt and play for the winner-take-all $120,000 prize: Jennifer Harman and Marco Traniello, David Benyamine and Erica Schoenberg and Phil Laak and Jennifer Tilly.

Now, we're not so sure how the dynamics of a poker relationship work, but at our houses if you bust your significant other out of a possible $120,000 payday, look for somewhere else to sleep. This would leave us with two options, dump the crap out of those chips so that you, yourself, don't get dumped. We're sure that they are all consummate poker professionals who will not take any grudges away from the table but whatever, $120k is $120k.

Catch all the action Monday through Friday at 2:05 a.m. EST, followed by a special "Director's Cut" edition on Saturday at 1 a.m. EST, following Saturday Night Live.

Leeann Tweeden will be the new hostess of the NBC series Poker After Dark. (Image from ModelVolume.com)

We here at The Beat love it when new hostesses are announced for the different poker TV shows that are out there because we normally have to post pictures of poker players and, barring Bodog's own Evelyn Ng, Shannon Elizabeth, Lacey Jones and maybe a couple of others, that's not usually very *attractive* proposition.

So, when job changes are in the works for people like Layla Kayleigh, Kimberly Lansing, Shana Hiatt, Sabina Gadecki and Marianela Pereyra, it's like Christmas for us as we scroll through page after page of Google Image results for someone other than Jason Potter.

Anyway, this time around Leeann Tweeden is our savior as she has been announced as the new hostess for Season 4 of the NBC series Poker After Dark. We have mentioned Tweeden on here before when she was named as the hostess for the National Heads-Up Championship, which is also an NBC property. So, it makes sense that they would extend her duties and make her the face of NBC poker.

There are still two weeks of play left in Season 3 before Tweeden picks up her duties. Winners from this season of PAD so far include Team Bodog poker pro David Williams, Phil Hellmuth, Johnny Chan, Gabe Kaplan and Vanessa Rousso.

The format involves six players ponying up $20,000 each and playing for the winner-take-all $120,000 prize and the single table game is followed over the course of a week. PAD usually airs weekdays at 2:05 a.m. EST with a "director's cut" weekly summary airing on Saturdays after Saturday Night Live.

Team Bodog's David Williams won last week's Poker After Dark for $140,000. (Bodog Beat Image)

The six-handed action on this week’s Poker After Dark included some legendary poker pros including Howard Lederer, Mike Matusow, Antonio Esfandiari, Eli Elezra, Barry Greenstein and Bodog’s own David Williams.

The mood was set early when Elezra went out on the first hand when his A-K ran into Lederer’s pocket Aces. Elezra bought back in for $20,000 boosting the prize pool to $140,000. With aggression being the flavor of the day two more players, Matusow and Greenstein, were both soon knocked out.

Matusow, thwarted for umpteenth time on Poker After Dark, probably had a cab waiting for him outside.

After riding the roller-coaster of aggressive poker play Elezra busted out after losing a race against Esfandiari.

Next to go was Lederer when he was all-in with pocket Aces against Williams’ pair of Jacks. Unfortuntely for Lederer a Jack on the River meant it was time to hit the road while Williams went heads-up against Esfandiari.

The final hand saw Esfandiari all-in with A-5 against Williams’ pocket 7s. The 7s held and Team Bodog’s David Williams won the $140,00 prize pool.

You could join David Williams and the rest of Team Bodog at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas this year. Qualify online for the WSOP and find out what it means to run with the Bodog Pack at the greatest poker tournament in the world.

Bodog poker pro David Williams will be on this week's episodes of the NBC poker TV show Poker After Dark. (Bodog Beat Image)

The newest matchup on the poker TV show Poker After Dark begins airing tonight on NBC and will feature Bodog poker pro David Williams. This week's match is entitled "Jam Up," and Williams will be competing against a formidable table of poker pros, Howard Lederer, Mike Matusow, Barry Greenstein, Eli Elezra and Antonio Esfandiari.

According to the PAD website, the term "Jam Up" can be attributed to Phil Hellmuth, who used the phrase during Season 4 of another poker TV show, High Stakes Poker, to describe the loose, aggressive, gambling play at his table. So PAD put together a table of players known for that style of play and, hey presto, you have a week's worth of poker.

The site also says that the players will be competing for the winner-take-all first-place prize of $140,000, $20,000 more than usual because of something that happens right at the beginning of the first episode. Episodes will air every night this week at 2:05 a.m. EST with a "Directors Cut" coming on after Saturday Night Live early on Sunday morning.

The only player in this week's group who has a win is Lederer; all the others will be hunting their first PAD victory. Winners on Season 3 of PAD so far include Johnny Chan (twice), Hellmuth (also twice), Gavin Smith and Gabe Kaplan.

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.