Before it gets too late, big congrats to Pokerati blogger-player Jon Katkin, who took 2nd place out of 220ish in the Opportunity Village Celebrity Poker Tournament at Caesars Palace last Saturday.
Nice!
Katkin bought in for a single $300 tax-deductible good-cause bullet, and with blinds rising quickly, maintained a 10-20 BB stack throughout to get to the final table. There, he knocked out Howard Lederer and outlasted Allen Cunningham to win $5,000, a week\’s stay in a fancy-room suite at the Rio during the WSOP main event, and $1k in food comps at any of the restos there.
Read Katkin\’s take on his own game as well as PokerGrump\’s impromptu coverage of the event.
This was one of three (that I know of) big charity tourneys over the past week where FullTiltPoker.net sponsored the event and contributed a $10k WSOP main event buy-in to the prize pool for the winner. It was almost like a Full Tilt charity tournament series …
Tuesday, of course, was my ill-fated attempt at charity glory in Jen Harman\’s Nevada SPCA tourney.
And Wednesday was the inaugural running of Ante Up for Africa-DC, hosted by Annie Duke, Don Cheadle, and the PPA. The fete raised $70k for Darfur relief and presumably helped convince at least a few federal types charged with determining our industry\’s future that Full Tilt are the good guys:
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Check it out … even though AUFA-DC was the one event with a field that didn\’t include Carrot Top, the Philadelphia Inquirer took note — and found a curious subtext in members of Congress hootin\’ it up with Lederer, who has been unabashedly trying to win support for anti-UIGEA efforts at the same time he may or may not be subject of a federal grand jury investigation …