There should be a big turnout for this one. The “All In for CP” tournament will be held on at noon Sunday, August 3rd (this weekend for the calendar-challenged) at the Hollywood Park Casino in Los Angeles. The event has been organized by Jacob Zalewski, pictured at right, who spent countless hours at the Rio during the WSOP gathering support for this tournament and his organization, the One Step Closer Foundation. The non-profit is his brainchild, and as a person who has dealt with cerebral palsy throughout his life, he hopes to raise funds to help others, as well as the researchers and scientists who are working toward a cure.

The $500 buy-in tournament (with $100 rebuys for the first 90 minutes) looks to have some famous names in the field, like Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Mekhi Phifer, Montel Williams, Jennifer Tilly, and Norm MacDonald. It is open to the public. The only poker pro officially on board is Jamie Gold, but it is likely that others will attend, as they often do when charity events are held in the L.A. area.

A silent auction will accompany the festivities, where memorabilia will be up for bid, as well as prize packages donated by Ray Romano and Brad Garrett.

I have family (with two kids) in town this weekend, so I will not be able to attend, but my hope is that others in L.A. will go enjoy a day with the celebs for a good cause. (And if you see Mekhi there, take photos please.) For more info, visit the official website.

Thanks to PokerStars PR guru Chris, we have some photos of Monday night’s party at the Palms.

The obligatory credit for all photos reads: The PokerStars.net Burlesque Party to Celebrate The World Series of Poker at Rain Nightclub inside The Palms Hotel Casino, Las Vegas, Nevada - 07.07.08
Photos by Image Masters.

Joe Hachem, Dita Von Teese, Daniel Negreanu

Dita Von Teese

Corey Feldman, Nick Cannon, Brandi Williams, Other Hollywood-Looking People

Chuck Lidell

Mekhi Phifer - The One Unseen and Unstalked by Cali Jen at the Palms on Monday

I’m seriously trying to stop it. In truth, I wouldn’t call it stalking… But every time I see the hot talented actor/producer/director in a field of poker players at a tournament, I just can’t help myself. But it is true that I haven’t exactly covered Ray Romano or Jason Alexander the same way… I suppose I might have a bias toward Mekhi.

When I saw Mr. Phifer at the Ante Up for Africa tournament yesterday and proceeded to take his picture, he had a certain look about him, one that said, Seriously? You again? or A call to Security might be in order here. So, when I was told that he was in the field today, I got control of myself and decided that I should leave him alone for the day. I already know he will be at a party I’m attending on Monday night, so I shouldn’t overdo it.

But lo and behold, he is sitting close to media row. Argh! Self-control is hard! But when I was made aware that he was doing quite well, I looked from afar and asked Dan to take a picture of his chip stack.

Take a look at that stack - it’s huge! Seriously, though, he had 55K going into the dinner break and seems to be playing a good game today while trying to stay under the radar. If it wasn’t for my well-intentioned and un-scary inability to stop following him around the poker tables his PokerStars patch, he might just go unnoticed.

UPDATE: Phifer has been eliminated from the tournament with less than an hour left in Day 1A.

Play started about 12:20 this afternoon for day 1a of the $10,000 NL Holdem Main Event, with the UNLV Marching Band and Wayne Newton kicking things off. I’m sure those who’ve chosen days 1b-1d are thankful that they didn’t have to experience that for their start as it will probably be a bit more low-key for them when play starts. It appears that the day 1a numbers will be around 1,297, which is very slightly above the day 1a figure from last year. The mysterious figure so far appears to be in the 4500-4900 range for now, as there are 468 spots currently showing for the prize pool (of course no $ figures as of yet) if you take a look at the picture on Pauly’s site.

Among those that won’t have to worry about making the November Nine: Raymond Rahme, Tuan Lam, Roy Winston, Tom “Durrr” Dwan, Vanessa Selbst, Eli Elezra, Katja Thater, Phil Galfond, Bob and Maureen Feduniak, Chad Brown, Lyle Berman, Dan Harrington, Jason Alexander, and plenty of other names (known and unknown). The current chip leader going into the dinner break is David “Chino” Rheem, who is currently at 103,000 in chips. Other recognizable names: Blair Hinkle, Svetlana Gromenkova, Kido Pham, Noah Boeken, Anna Wroblewski, Mekhi Phifer, Maya Antonius and plenty of others. Follow the updates during the evening at the WSOP.com site here. Play starts again shortly, as they play two more 2-hour levels, then the survivors get to return on July 8 for day 2a.

More updates during the rest of the evening…

Let me start out by saying that the Ante Up for Africa tournament is a stellar effort to raise money for Darfur refugees and awareness of the mass atrocities taking place in Africa and around the world. The ENOUGH and Not On Our Watch projects are doing wonderful things, and I hope this tournament raises a great deal of money for the causes.

The tournament was held in the Brasilia room here at the Rio. That’s all I know. How many players? Didn’t have time to count because the media was given 15 minutes for photos before we were kicked out. Names of all the celebrities and poker pros? Again, not enough time to write them down. Hopefully, a press release will be issued with all of the information at some point.

Good news? Mekhi Phifer was playing in the tournament.

Bad news? I’m not sure where to begin.

Blanket statement: The media aspect of this day was handled poorly. Very poorly.

More…

Wait, Dan has friends?

I kid. Evidently, he knows the Batfaces, and a group of them are in Vegas to drink heavily play in the World Series. I daydreamed about Mekhi Phifer listened intently as Dan told me about his friends and how their tournaments are going.

Here’s what I caught: Tim, Troy, and Randy are out. Eric (one of them, not sure which) and Todd are still in.

Dan is at the Rio today and walking the tournament floor to text CSR updates about the guys. Go Batfaces!

My World Series of Poker is complete.

Mekhi Phifer - actor, director, producer, hottie poker player - has entered the $1500 no-limit hold’em tournament. He does enjoy any opportunity to play poker, but he might have just used this as an excuse to be in the same room with me. Just a hunch.

And he flashed the peace sign when I snapped the picture. It’s a secret code; trust me.

Other things are happening here at the WSOP. People are playing cards, moving chips around, etc. I will try to take note of some of those things in between Mekhi stalkings sightings.

UPDATE: I just saw Mekhi leaving the building. No doubt being seated for some time next to Phil Hellmuth in full NASCAR gear hurt his game. Now he’s been eliminated from the donkament, and there is a certain sadness all around. Well, okay, just with me. I’m sure I’ll see him at the main event though, if not at another $1500.

Mekhi Phifer - Courtesy of PokerListings.com

The WPT Invitational got underway yesterday with a 5pm reception. Open bars, free buffet, dj spinning some tunes, celebs excited to meet poker pros, poker pros excited to meet celebs, media enjoying the food and drink…

It was quite fun and not the normal introduction to a poker tournament. Everyone seemed to be enjoying the atmosphere and the company. And when players took their seats at 7pm for the freeroll tourney, the fun continued. While most people wouldn’t mind doing well and taking home their share of the $200k prize pool, it was predominantly a room full of drunks not-too-serious poker playing.

Within the first few hours, my personal fav Mekhi Phifer was eliminated AND didn’t say goodbye to me, so the night was pretty much over. Some other stuff probably happened, but you’ll have to check WPT Live Updates, PokerPages, or PokerListings for actual results.

Day 2 begins today at 2pm with only 112 remaining players out of the original 400-420-somewhere in that range.

While much of Hollywood continues to be shut down due to the ongoing writers’ strike, people like Brittany and Jamie Lynn Spears keep us entertained with their dysfunctional lives. It’s the trainwreck that you can’t look away from… But let’s move on to stars playing poker.

It seems that Mekhi Phifer, currently starring on E.R., likes poker more than the occasional celebrity tournament. He recently held a family Christmas party at his home for 80 people, and a poker game was the big attraction. He even put up the grand prize – two tickets to the Bahamas. For those not invited (like me, can you believe it?), Phifer can be seen in the recently released film, This Christmas, in which he starred and produced.

Early 2008 is the scheduled air time for a BET special called Black Poker Superstars that was recently filmed at Planet Hollywood in Vegas. Stars like Nelly, Anthony Anderson, Orlando Jones, Eddie Griffin, and Mekhi Phifer played in the poker tournament, and Matt Savage served as the tournament director. Poker pro David Williams also attended and provided commentary for the show. Top finishers donated their prize monies to various charities.

Actor Kevin Hart noted, “I have grown a passion for the game. I would love to get to the point where I can rub elbow with David Williams and Mike ‘The Grinder’ in tournaments, and they can say, ‘Hey, this guy is a good player.’”

Recently, Justin Timberlake was bringing sexy back to Australia and wanted to play some real poker during the trip. His management called Crown Casino and requested a game with Joe Hachem, who obliged. In return, Timberlake gave Hachem’s daughters front row tickets to his concert.

Finally, the long-discussed movie about Amarillo Slim is finally in pre-production. Writer Christopher Wilkinson, who also penned Nixon and Ali has secured Nicholas Cage as the lead actor to play Slim. The film is an adaptation of Slim’s book, “Amarillo Slim in a World Full of Fat People: The Memoirs of the Greatest Gambler Who Ever Lived” and will be titled, strangely enough, Amarillo Slim.