PPA Charity Poker Tournament Raises $35,000 for the USO

Poker News - July 23rd, 2009 - Written by Bruce

This past Tuesday the Poker Players Alliance held a charity poker tournament to raise money for the USO of Metropolitan, Washington. The tournament was held at the Hyatt Regency Capital Hill and began at 7pm. Before the play began Ivan Neville sang the national anthem and the PPA kindly donated $25,000 to the USO. The poker tournament was set up as a free buy in to enter, with rebuys costing $100 each going to the fundraising efforts. Numerous poker pros showed up for this special event and many of them paid for the rebuys of the 35 veterans who were playing from the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Some of the biggest names in poker were part of this generous event such as Greg Raymer, Annie Duke, Andy Bloch, Howard Lederer, and Dennis Phillips. Also lending support was talk show host Montell Williams. The rebuys were paid for mostly by the pro poker players in the field which raised another $10,000 to put the total amount raised for the USO up to $35,000 for the night.

The field consisted of approximately 180 players all donating their time and money on behalf of the fundraising efforts. The top 24 finishers would receive some form of a payout. The two grand prizes were a $1,900 gift certificate to the World Series of Poker Academy and round trip vacation for two to Las Vegas with all accommodations included. The players started with 10,000 in chips and the blinds started at 50-100. The players had to be out of chips completely in order to rebuy, yet many players were rebuying within the first few minutes of the tournament. Howard Lederer and his sister Annie Duke both re bought four times within the first 30 minutes of play. They along with the many other of the pros were also very generous in paying for the rebuys of their table mates helping to raise even more money. Along with the poker pros many congressman were in attendance helping to raise money as well. They included Ed Perlmutter (D-CO), Tom Perriello (D-VA), Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA), Peter King (R-NY), Xavier Becerra (D-CA), Shelley Berkley (D-NV), and Martin Heinrich (D-NM).

This was a very generous thing done by the Poker Players Alliance and they should be commended greatly for their efforts. The $35,000 raised will be a great help to a truly wonderful organization such as the USO. The USO is a private nonprofit organization that provides services to members of the US military. They have 135 centers worldwide. The support shown by all the poker players was tremendous and they should be thanked for all the money they helped raise. Unfortunately when the poker world does nice gestures like these it sometimes goes unnoticed and all the detractors of poker fail to give the credit that is deserved for helping with such a great cause.