All In For Kids

Last night was the 3rd annual All In For Kids charity event for Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania. It was held at The Mandarin Oriental Hotel in NY City, which is at the Time Warner Center at the Southwest Corner of Central Park and is one of the prime spots in NY City. Phil Hellmuth was the poker host and he had with him Steve Martin and his wife. The event raised over $800,000 for the charity which was really great. Nick Binger was there, along with Dan Shak who was one of the founders of the event, and Nicole Rowe who you may remember lost heads up to a guy last year in a ladies event. There were 120 players and a pretty aggressive blind structure. Hellmuth was on the microphone all night, giving play by play at the various tables.

Steve Martin actually played pretty well. Steve, according to Phil use to be a regular in the Johnny Carson game in LA. In face Steve knocked out Phil’s sister molly when they got it all in on the flop on a A 9 4 board. Molly had AK and Steve pocket 4’s for a set. I did well for a while, but as the blinds increased with lightning speed I pushed in late position with KQ suited after 4 players limped. I got one caller who tabled 89 and hit a nine on the turn. My wife lasted much longer than me and busted after should took my advice and started to play more aggressively. My brother Michael finished in 4th place, which having watched him for a while amazed me. He made two crazy all in calls, the first for almost all of his chips when he had only 100 in the pot with 22, and held against two over’s. The second time there was a limp followed by two all-ins, he then called for all his chips with 33. He somehow dodged four over’s and won a monster pot.

All in all it was a night of great people, fun, food and a truly great cause. I have two more charity events coming up in the next few weeks, one in Beverly Hills on November 3rd and the other back in Manhattan on November 16th, here is the link for that event: http://www.kintera.org/AutoGen/home/Home.asp?ievent=444135&en=bpLFLLNtHcJEJLNyHiLFKLMwHjIUK0MwGdJIIQNwGkIXKaI.
While out in CA, I will spend a week at The Commerce, which I always look forward to.