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Poker Community Generosity Shows in Efforts at WSOP

Written by Jennifer Newell
Last updated on
Jennifer Newell

When poker players get together, they can do great things. I’ve started other articles with this exact same sentence because it is so true.

The World Series of Poker in Las Vegas brings poker players together in person, which is so much more appreciated this year after the lockdowns and isolation endured throughout the pandemic. And the WSOP often becomes a launching pad for charitable efforts. This 2021 WSOP did start with a Covid-relief benefit tournament on the first day of action on September 30. Another one goes down this week, and one more takes place next week.

In between those giving opportunities, others have shown their generosity in their own ways.

Three 2021 WSOP Charity Events

As mentioned, some of the charitable opportunities are built in to the World Series. Players find reasonable buy-ins, somewhat loose fields, and a gold bracelet at the end of the road. Add a way to give back to charity at the same time? Sure.

The first of these tournaments this year in Las Vegas was Event 3 set to benefit first responders, those who worked on the front lines of the pandemic. While the WSOP did not publicly name the charity or charities to benefit, they did take $100 from every $1K buy-in, which totaled approximately $25K for the cause.

This week, Event 63 will begin. The Salute to Warriors tournament requires a $500 buy-in, and the WSOP will keep $40 of each entry to donate to the USO (United Service Organizations) and other veterans’ groups.

And on November 8, the Little One for One Drop, also known as Event 68, will play begin. The multi-day start offers unlimited reentries at $1,111 each, of which the $111 part goes to One Drop, an organization dedicated to providing clean water to people around the world.

Pieces of Players

Every year – at least in the past decade or so – at least a few poker players announce that they will donate a percentage of their winnings to charity.

ESPN/CBS commentator Norman Chad kicked off that effort in a unique way. He offered to play Event 2 of the WSOP if backers would buy enough pieces of him to come up with half of the $25K buy-in. It took 139 backers, but it happened. Chad didn’t make the money in the event, but he donated the $12,500 he raised to the Hope for Depression Research Foundation. This is a cause close to his heart, as he publicly discussed his own battles with depression during the pandemic.

Jennifer Shahade announced on Oct 11 that she would be donating a portion of her winnings to abortion funds, organizations that provide abortions and other healthcare for women. Three days later, she cashed in her first WSOP tournament and donated 10% of her winnings to the Women’s Center in Philadelphia.

A player who prefers to be known as DGAF felt inspired by Shahade. He dedicated 1% of his WSOP Main Event equity to three charities, one of which will be chosen by Shahade for abortion funding and the others to address climate change and Las Vegas homelessness. He also issued a challenge for other people to do the same.

Charity Series of Poker in Vegas

Multiple times each year – even online during the pandemic – the Charity Series of Poker (CSOP) hosts poker tournaments to benefit various charities. And every summer during the WSOP, they host a live charity event. This year, the CSOP and founder Matt Stout are spearheading two charity tournaments.

The first one is on November 5 to benefit Three Square Food Bank, a common benefactor of CSOP’s Las Vegas fundraising efforts. The second is the next night and will benefit FEAT (Families for Effective Autism Treatment), which helps families impacted by autism.

More information for both of those events is here and on the CSOP website, the latter of which provides for online registration.

One Gives All

People who follow poker know his name now. Gershon Distenfeld is a philanthropist and poker enthusiast. He shows a few 2018 and 2019 poker tournament cashes on his Hendon Mob page, but his 2020 run at a World Series of Poker bracelet put him on everyone’s radar.

He played the WSOP Online from his home in New Jersey during the 2020 pandemic. And despite a sincere preference for playing live poker, he did well in the US version of the WSOP Main Event online. He made the final table, which warranted a trip to Las Vegas at the end of the year to play for the title and then the World Championship bracelet.

Distenfeld is a businessman who has done well for himself in the finance world. He and his family, which includes a wife and four children, are set, according to him. Poker is his hobby and does not play for any financial gain. He loves the challenge and wants to win, and his plans were always to donate all of his proceeds to charity.

When he said this last year, it took even the most generous poker players by surprise.

In the end, Distenfeld finished in eighth place for $125,885. He ultimately designated eight charities and split the donations among them.

This year, the recreational poker player returned to the Rio to try again to win a bracelet. He played in Event 28, the $1,500 NLHE Shootout, and he won it. The prize he wanted was the gold bracelet, but he also collected $204,063 in cash. He planned to donate all of that to charity.

During and after that tournament, Distenfeld challenged the poker community. Specifically, he challenged people who win WSOP bracelets this year to donate 1% of those winnings to a charity of their choice. “There’s no lack of needs out there,” he told PokerNews. “If I could have a lasting impact in the poker community, it would be that.”

Making Poker Dreams Come True

The last time poker players jumped on an opportunity en masse to help a single person was in 2018. Remember Jeremy Hilsercop? On Christmas in 2018, his wife Randi gifted him a seat in a World Series of Poker tournament (which was to be his first) and travel and accommodations to go to the WSOP that next summer of 2019 to play.

The video of an emotional Hilsercop opening his gift went viral.

The poker community jumped all over the story to contact the Hilsercop family to make the trip more special. And what they, particularly Joey Ingram, accomplished was to get PokerStars to offer them a trip to the Bahamas in January 2019 and a complimentary seat to the inaugural PSPC (worth $25K) to play for millions of dollars. I wrote about it all at the time.

This year, another opportunity arose. And again, it started with a tweet.

Michael Graydon of Alabama was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer earlier in 2021. His wish was to play the WSOP Main Event, which costs $10K to enter. He took to Twitter to sell pieces of his action. In fact, he wanted to sell 70% of himself with no markup just to be able to play.gerr

Enter poker players. Not only did many, many people reach out to invest, MJ Gonzales and Jonathan Depa took care of the entire $10K buy-in. Maria Ho offered to pay for his flight to Las Vegas. All-American Dave offered unlimited freshly-cooked meals while he plays. Noah Schwartz offered to help with the hotel accommodations and organize a dinner with Phil Hellmuth, who quickly agreed. Others offered other meals, rides to and from the airport. And it all happened within just a few hours.

Even further, poker players offered to buy him in to other WSOP events and tournaments at the Poker Open at Prime Social in Houston, Texas, as well as any RunGood Poker Series Main Event he’d like to play.

Graydon explained to PokerNews that he started playing poker at a young age for fun. He has only played in WSOP Circuit events when work and family permitted the time to play over the past decade and a half. He did play (and cash) in a WSOP event in Las Vegas several years ago. He has always been a recreational player.

The brain cancer diagnosis started with some general medical complaints in December 2020 that erupted into a host of issues, such as a paralyzed vocal cord. Ultimately, in March 2021, the doctors diagnosed the source of the problems as brain cancer…of a terminal nature. He is undergoing radiation and chemotherapy currently, which could extend his 1-2-year life length projection to up to 10 years, if all goes well. He and his wife of 12 years (Haley) and two daughters aged nine and six hope for the best.

Meanwhile, he will enjoy a poker experience like none other. “I shouldn’t have been surprised,” he said to Jon Sofen of PokerNews, “because I’ve seen the poker community step up time and time again for everyone.”

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