All in for charity

World Series of Poker Champ Joe Hachem is shown in one commercial with ice water running through his veins.

As a general rule, a professional poker player has refined the detection of emotion or other tells into an art form, all the while keeping his own feelings under wraps to protect his chips.

It's said (in fact marketed on a World Poker Tour T-shirt) that good players will check-raise their own grandmother if it means using their position at the table to haul in a bigger pot at the end of the hand. So it's common for the average viewer to think professionals are generous only in terms of how many chips they throw into the pot with hopes of obtaining more wealth.

But the best of the best also can show their humanity and use the game as a tool to raise awareness about horrors as far from the logo-wrapped felt as you can get.

"It's a false perception that poker players aren't generous," said Annie Duke, who's earned millions of dollars and raised as much for others. "The top professionals are playing in some kind of charity tournament at least once a month."

Duke is an unabashed bleeding-heart liberal -- not to mention one of the world's best players. She's check-raised her own brother (poker pro Howard Lederer) and has bluffed others en route to a rare bracelet for a woman in a non-ladies event at the World Series of Poker. Hers came in 2004 in the $2,000 Omaha Hi-Low Split event.

Duke's skills as a fundraiser now rival her poker plays. Private poker lessons just fetched $22,000 at auction for a Chicago theater. She's helped animals, hurricane victims, brain tumor survivors and kids with cancer. She just raised half a million dollars for Children's Hospital of Boston, and she serves on the board of an education group committed to developing decision-making curricula for middle and high schools.

If a presidential candidate (Democratic, of course) asked her, she'd love to do a poker fundraiser. For now, the Ivy League-educated mother of four is intent on trying to raise awareness for the crisis in Darfur.

Ante Up for Africa, which begins today at 4, is pro poker's "We Are the World." Duke worked with actor Don Cheadle, Oscar-nominated for "Hotel Rwanda," in putting together her latest poker charity event. Cheadle, who is a leading celebrity advocate for Darfur refugees, and Duke had discussed hosting such a tourney. Shortly afterward, Hollywood support for the idea solidified, and before long Duke was working to get approval from the Nevada Gaming Commission.

Five months ago, the rules were established, leaving Duke just weeks to nail down $200,000 in sponsorships. Players will ante up $5,000 apiece to enter, promising half of any winnings will be donated to the cause.

Duke's already looking to next year's event, where she thinks sponsorships alone will result in $1 million.

"Poker's an amazing way to raise money," she said.

The World Series of Poker was happy to oblige, shelving a poorly attended media tournament to roll out a red carpet for the event.

Today's event should get plenty of attention with the likes of actors Cheadle, George Clooney, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Ray Romano, Brad Garrett and Jason Alexander.

Poker is just as well represented with Duke, Doyle Brunson, Hachem, Phil Helmuth, Lederer, Andy Bloch, Barry Greenstein, Ted Forest, Jennifer Tilley, Allen Cunningham, Phil Ivey, Phil Laak, Jennifer Harman, Mike Matusow and Erik Seidel to name just a few. Players with other commitments have pledged $5,000 anyway, Duke said.

"Two million people have been displaced in Darfur," Duke said. "It's a huge crisis, but if we put our attention on it, we can make a difference."

Last month, Gov. Jim Gibbons urged the Nevada Public Employee Retirement System to divest $1.5 million from two foreign companies funding the Sudanese government, which is sponsoring the genocide that has killed an estimated 200,000 to 400,000 people in the Darfur region.

Duke believes withdrawing American money from foreign companies doing business with Sudanese oil fields will go further toward ending a crisis she believes the U.S. government has not done enough to stop. "America can speak with its wallet," Duke said. "When you look at apartheid in South Africa, it was divestment that helped tear it down."

PERS has said, in perfect bureaucratic fashion, that it would be too difficult to withdraw the money from French engineering company Alstom and from Lundin Petroleum of Sweden.

But it appears that PERS has begun to divest, though through no action of its own. In fact the bulk of PERS money that was getting to the Sudanese government has stopped flowing because Rolls Royce and Schlumberger of France have divested, leaving PERS to look more pure. It's pretty clear the remaining $1.5 million is simply blood money.

Duke and Cheadle deserve credit for drumming up attention and raising money on such a wide scale. Here's hoping today's tournament is wildly successful, and that some of the spotlight stays focused on Nevada's public employee pension fund.

Erin Neff's column runs Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. She can be reached at (702) 387-2906, or by e-mail at eneff@reviewjournal.com.