Richardson, accused of taking a less-than-charitable payout option.

Kinda bummed I missed Ante-Up for Africa yesterday … Hollywood A-list celebrity-related traffic aside (and pictures of Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Charles Barkley, Don Cheadle, Jason Alexander, Dean Cain, Brad Garret, Herschel Walker, and Sarah Silverman playing poker) … this is arguably the biggest charity poker tournament of the year (in the world) … and I was curious how the money worked. It was my understanding that originally, 50 percent of the prize pool went to Refugees International a charity* … and the big winners, being already-rich folks moved by the excitement of no-limit hold’em and thoughts of a tax-deductible feel-good gesture, often chose to give their cash prize over to the honorary good cause as well.

But this year people were telling me it was a mere request for generosity — that winners give at least 50 percent of their prize payout to AUFA, which would be shipping the money to the Sudanese cause via the Enough Project (and the IRC?). That seemed a little odd to me, because hey, if the wrong person wins, there could be a problem. Sure enough, an email just came in over the transom — skewering a player named Adam Richardson, who most recently finished in 143rd place in a $1,500 NLH at this year’s WSOP, and 624th in last year’s main event — with the subject line, “What a Prick!”:

Not sure if you got this news. But the prick who won second place in the World Series of Poker charity event which is Ante Up For Africa, completely stiffed the charity.

Players do not have to give any money, according to the rules. But all the players know this is an important event set up to help a very good cause.

Many witnesses said the player was approached afterward by some of the organizers. He was asked politely if he cared to leave a donation, and replied that no one could do anything to stop him and that he was leaving with all the prize money. He walked out the door with like over $100,000.

The player was rude during the tournament and obviously had his own agenda, which was not in the spirit of helping the Ante Up for Africa cause. He likely saw a softer than usual field and took advantage. He had every intention of enriching himself at the expense of the charity.

The player’s name is Adam Richardson, from Poway, California.

He is bad for poker and needs to be called out for taking an angle shot in this event. I hope you will agree this is despicable behavior. The guy is a total prick. Roast his fucking ass.

Hunter

Hmm, if this is true, indeed, arguably poor form. We have not confirmed any of this (and I wasn’t there for the actual event), but the above is the email that’s circulating, and it at least raises the question why a certain chunk of the prize pool isn’t automatically taken out for the charity itself (as it is with most charity poker events).

* Ante Up for Africa “designated charities” have included the Enough Project, Not on Our Watch, and the International Rescue Committee. Refugees International was the recipient of Annie Duke’s Celebrity Apprentice fundraisers.

NOTE: Adam Richardson (unconfirmed) responds to “Hunter’s” accusations in the comments below.

Starting with today’s lone tournament starting, one with a very worthy cause:

Ante Up for Africa

The big charity event of the WSOP is this afternoon’s Ante Up for Africa, a star-studded affair with a $5,000 buy-in, with a request that those who make the money donate 50% of their proceeds to Refugees International and The Enough Project to attempt to end the crisis in Darfur. It’s also the shortest tournament of the WSOP, with it’s 20-minute blind levels in the first hour followed by increases every 15 minutes, the tournament is projected to finish in just five hours. ESPN’s cameras will be following the action as it’s scheduled to dedicate two hours of their WSOP coverage to this event.

Finishing up the Wednesday night tournaments:

Veckey Victorius in $1,500 NL

Tony Veckey makes his first career cash a WSOP bracelet in the $1,500 NL Holdem, good for $673,276 defeating Jason Wheeler heads-up. Nolan Dalla’s tournament report notes that Veckey is a software engineer with Motorola and a graduate of the DeVry Institute. He was hoping to play in Saturday’s $1,500 NL Holdem event, but it was sold out, leaving him to make this his first WSOP tournament. He’s returning back to work and has decided not to parlay this success into this year’s Main Event, choosing to wait until 2010’s Main Event.

Abe’s Awesome in Triple Draw

As noted in the post below, Julie Schneider finished 3rd in the $2,500 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball with high stakes veteran Abe Mosseri picking up his first career WSOP bracelet, along with $165,513. Masayoshi Tanaka finished in second, denied Japan’s first WSOP bracelet, picking up $102,313.

Sweet Sixteen Survive in Six-Max

Sixteen players remain in the final preliminary event of the WSOP $5,000 NL Holdem 6-Handed . They resume this afternoon at 1pm to play down to a winner and this is how they will be seated when play resumes:

(Table 58)
Seat 1: Peter Feldman – 1328000
Seat 2: Aurelien Guiglini – 549000
Seat 3: Josh Brikis – 294000
Seat 4: Thorsten Schaefer – 1094000
Seat 5: Matthew Waxman – 1132000
Seat 6: Alex Venovski – 684000

(Table 59)
Seat 1: James St Hilaire – 876000
Seat 2: John Conkright – 749000
Seat 4: Rory Mathews – 1358000
Seat 5: Jonas Wexler – 848000
Seat 6: Eugene Katchalov – 356000

(Table 60)
Seat 1: Robert Kay – 1213000
Seat 3: Frank Calo – 569000
Seat 4: Sean Keeton – 641000
Seat 5: Matt Hawrilenko – 1327000
Seat 6: Faraz Jaka – 778000

Phil Hellmuth finished in 24th place, if he remained it probably would have given ESPN’s production team quite the difficulty in covering his run for bracelet number twelve and the Ante Up for Africa event.

Follow the updates of today’s activity at www.wsop.com and Pokerati will surely be there covering all the high-profile celebrities in action.

All of the speculation has proven true; Annie Duke did participate in the second season of Donald Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice, according to E! Online and every other media outlet. The 16 participants were announced this week, and Duke’s name was on the list, as was the charity (Refugees International) that she played for.

Photo courtesy of Mitch Haaseth of NBC

The show will begin airing on NBC March 1st with the Donald and the cast, with their corresponding charities, that follows:

* Clint Black, country legend; International Rett Syndrome Foundation
* Andrew Dice Clay, comedian; Stand Up for Kids
* Annie Duke, World Series of Poker champ; Refugees International
* Tom Green, comedian and talk-show host; Butch Walts and Donald Skinner Urologic Cancer Research Foundation
* Natalie Gulbis, professional golfer; Boys and Girls Club
* Scott Hamilton, Olympic figure skater; The Cleveland Clinic Foundation
* Jesse James, TV host, restaurateur and clothing line founder; Long Beach Education Foundation
* Claudia Jordan, Deal or No Deal model; NAPSAC Foundation
* Khloe Kardashian, reality star and boutique owner; Brent Shapiro Foundation for Alcohol and Drug Awareness
* Brian McKnight, singer and Broadway star; Youthville USA
* Joan Rivers, Emmy-winning comedian and red carpet terror; God’s Love We Deliver
* Melissa Rivers, red carpet cohost and producer; Lili Claire Foundation
* Brande Roderick, actress and production company owner; California Police Youth Charities
* Dennis Rodman, former NBA star; Court Appointed Special Advocates of New Orleans
* Herschel Walker, former NFL star; Alternative Community Development Services (Project Turnaround)
* Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins, singer, former TLC member; Sickle Cell Foundation of Georgia

As for Annie’s charity, Refugees International offers support and aid for displaced people around the world and works toward solutions for crises that cause that displacement.