Last night was a good night for poker and the world.
The Ante Up for Africa tournament, a $5,000 event that took place at the Rio to raise money for charities that are dealing with the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, concluded when the final two players, Dan Shak and Brandon Moran, stood up and announced that they decided to donate all their winnings to the charities.
With that, the tournament ended. Just between Shak and Moran, $368,738 went to the Enough Project and the International Rescue Committee.
The $5,000 tournament, which was dreamt up by actor Don Cheadle and poker star Annie Duke, was added to the World Series of Poker schedule as a kind of exhibition. Although no money was held out of the prize pool for the charities, the players were asked to donate at least half of their winnings to the charities.
If everyone who cashed added half their winnings to Shak and Moran's large donation, then $601,869 would've been donated out of the $835,000 prize pool. The WSOP didn't have an exact figure.
The celebs who showed up included Cheadle, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Adam Sandler, Ray Romano, Dean Cain, Brad Garrett, Martin Sheen, Charles Barkley, Hank Azaria, and Cheryl Hines.
Poker stars who played included Michael Binger, Andy Bloch, Justin Bonomo, Doyle Brunson, John Cernuto, Antonio Esfandiari, Farshad Fardad, Clonie Gowen, Russ Hamilton, Joe and Tony Hachem, Phil Hellmuth, Howard Lederer, Mike Matusow, Daniel Negreanu, Kevin O'Donnell, and Stephen Zolotow.
