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Alex Bolotin Wins 2009 World Series of Poker Ante Up for Africa Charity Event

I was glad to see that ESPN chose to show this event because it was a lot more entertaining then your average poker tournament. The celebrities caused for a lot of funny moments and if you watched it then you definitely know what I’m talking about. There wasn’t that large of a playing field in the tournament as there were only 137 players including quite a few pro poker players and big name celebrities. The buy-in for the tournament was $5000 making the prize pool a whooping $665,820.

The idea behind the event is to raise money for charity and although players didn’t need to donate winnings to the charity they were asked to donate 50% of their winnings. The money donated would go towards raising money for local charities in Darfur. In my opinion the event was a huge success as not only were charities being helped, but the action was very laid back unlike a lot of other poker tournaments.

Some of the players that played in the tournament this year include Annie Duke, Jennifer Harman, Peter Eastgate, Mike Matusow, Dennis Phillips, Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson, Phil Gordon, Don Cheadle, Montel, Nelly, Charles Barkley, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon and many others. As you can see there were quite a few big name celebrities that decided to take part in the charity event and it’s an excellent thing to see poker being able to support charities in need. Poker players are always very generous and this event is just one of many charity poker tournaments held throughout the year.

Alex Bolotin ended up winning the event after beating Adam Richardson heads-up. He won the first place prize of $176,449. Several poker pros made the final table in the event as well, but they couldn’t beat the Alex or Adam and were knocked out before the final two. The pros that made the final table include Chris Ferguson, Phil Gordon and Erik Siedel.

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