The Poker Players Alliance (PPA for short), in another exhibition of how good their understanding of public optics is, has raised $35,000 through their charity poker tournament. That $35,000 has gone to the USO of Metropolitan Washington, showing the country and indeed the world that poker is a lot more than just a simple game of gambling around a poker table. The PPA included a $25,000 donation out of their own pocket in the total proceeds that ended up going to the USO, showing that poker players are charitable and generous.

There were actually quite a few different well known names represented in the tournament and they went from poker professionals right through to politicians making their home away from home right there in Washington. Jan Fisher, Annie Duke, Howard Lederer, Andy Bloch, Greg Raymer and Dennis Phillips were all their representing poker professionals as well as their own particular brand of online gaming site, whichever one it happened to be.

Montel Williams was there, a man with a major talk show as well as a 20-year love of pocket. There were also a total of 35 different veterans that were allowed to play in the tournament coming from the Walter Reed hospital as part of the VA system. The tournament was free for everybody to enter and re-buys were $100 per re-buy. Many of the poker professionals actually did end up paying for re-buys for the veterans playing from the army center, giving them a chance to go toe-to-toe in some surprisingly intense poker action.

There were politicians at the tournament, as previously mentioned. There were at least five Congressmen from the House of Representatives. One of them was even a Republican, something that really buoyed the confidence of many that felt that the Republicans would be a big roadblock to eventually getting Congress to rescind the UIGEA or at least include an exemption in it for online poker.

In the end, the tournament definitely did fulfill its main purpose which was to drum up support for the causes of the PPA. Therefore, it cannot be called anything other than a significant success.