Well folks with all the excitement of the first days of the Main Event we let another important WSOP event slip under our writing radar. Last week the pro-founded poker charity Ante Up for Africa held its third annual WSOP event. The charity’s founders Norman Epstein, Annie Duke and Don Cheadle often lament that our less fortunate African friends are frequently overlooked in favor of more trendy causes, but in this case the slight was completely unintentional. With the huge celebrity turnout at least it’s safe to say they didn’t miss us.

The ever-present pro wannabes Matt Damon and Ben Affleck made an appearance, as did Nelly, Charles Barkley, Cedric the Entertainer, and Sarah Silverman. (Naturally there was also an abundance of C-list stars hoping to use the event to boost their own PR, but we’ll let someone else talk about them.) Even Duke’s former Celebrity Apprentice opponent Herschel Walker anted up. Joan Rivers, naturally, was absent but the poker pros she openly disparaged earlier this year made a point of proving her “trashy” accusations wrong by coming out in big numbers to support the charity.

Daniel Negreanu, Greg Mueller, Phil Hellmuth, Jason Mercier, Jennifer Harman and a whole slew of other big-name players put the heat on their celebrity contemporaries. In the end, the pros came out on top proving yet again that it’s easy to look like a poker player but much harder to actually win. Event champion Alex Bolotin did both and true to the nature of the event donated half of his $176,449 earnings back to the charity.

Of the 138 players that paid the $5,000 buy-in 18 cashed, and they must have been feeling generous because over $360,000 was donated back to Ante Up for Africa.