New Poker After Dark Season Begins July 14

Season 4 of NBC’s Poker After Dark finished taping on April 18 and after a couple months of editing, it is ready for broadcast.  The new season will begin the week of July 14 and run through the end of the year.  The show will not air the weeks of August 11 and August 18 because NBC will be showing the 2008 Olympic Summer Games. 

The very first week of PAD will feature a new format for the show, a high stakes cash game, rather than a six-person tournament.  The game will be $200/$400 no-limit hold’em and will feature a mix of players: well-known pros Phil Hellmuth and Allen Cunningham, recreational players Guy Laliberte (founder of Cirque du Soleil) and Mike Baxter, relatively unknown cash game expert David Peat, and internet pro Tom Dwan.  A second week of cash games will air in October. 

The week of July 28 will also feature a new format, a four-person heads-up mini tournament, which will include the four winners of the NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship: Phil Hellmuth, Ted Forrest, Paul Wasicka, and Chris Ferguson. 

The “Dream Match” is also back, scheduled to air the week of September 29.  In this tournament, an online qualifier will get the chance to compete against five of his favorite players.  This time, Paul Featherstone selected Mike Matusow, Phil Hellmuth, Mike Sexton, Jennifer Harman, and Gavin Smith.  Guess he enjoys conversation. 

In all, Season 4 will include ten new weeks of programming, as well as encore broadcasts from earlier seasons and re-runs of Season 4 shows.

(Courtesy of PokerSourceOnline)