Despite the expectations of many within the poker world, there will not be another professional poker player on the next season of the reality television series “Celebrity Apprentice,” it was announced.

Poker pro Annie Duke appeared on the second season of the show, last year, and finished as runnerup in the competition to become Donald Trump’s celebrity apprentice.

Comic Joan Rivers, who coincidentally happened to co-run a New York City charity with Trump’s sister-in-law, Blaine, won the competition.

Because of Duke’s popularity and success on the show, many throughout poker were speculating that another professional poker player might be on the third season of the show, which is scheduled to begin on March 14, 2010.

Fuel was added to that speculation fire when fellow poker pro Phil “Poker Brat” Hellmuth Jr. made a cameo appearance in one of last year’s episodes.

Also, after last year’s series concluded, another poker pro, Daniel “Kid Poker” Negreanu, wrote on his blog that he’d like to participate in the show.

But, barring a last-minute change or addition, the next season of “Celebrity Apprentice” will not feature any poker players, announced NBC, the TV network which airs the show in the USA.

So who did make the cut?

According to NBC, the contestants on the 2010 edition of “Celebrity Apprentice” will be disgraced former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. reality TV star Sharon Osbourne, pro wrestler Goldberg, TV chef Curtis Stone, comic Sinbad, model Selita Ebanks, actress Holly Robinson Peete, Olympic sprinter Michael Johnson, singer Cyndi Lauper, pro wrestler Maria Kanellis, rock musician Bret Michaels, Olympic swimmer Summer Sanders, former pro baseball player Darryl Strawberry and comic Carol Leifer.

It’s the typical wannabes and has-beens “Celebrity Apprentice” lineup of B-list celebs: people no one has heard of, like Ebanks, Kanellis and Stone, or people who were once famous but now can’t get arrested, like Lauper, Michaels and Sinbad.

There’s room for two ex-Olympians, two singers, two pro wrestlers and two comics, but they can’t find a spot for one stinkin’ poker player?

And no one at NBC thought Hellmuth might liven things up a bit?

What, those NBC suits never watch poker on ESPN?

Even a down-home philosopher like Doyle “Texas Dolly” Brunson or a loose cannon like Negreanu would be better TV than an obscure chef.

Can you imagine Negreanu and Strawberry on television trading insults (and maybe punches)?

Or Brunson giving Sinbad odds on whether the comic would ever be relevant again?

Now that would be great TV!

(E-mail Tom Somach at tomsomach@yahoo.com.)