Despite its reputation, Las Vegas is quickly becoming a philanthropic city, with charity events popping up in some of the most unlikely places. Take for instance the upcoming Celebrity Poker Shootout at the Palms in Las Vegas on Sunday, August 12 at 11:00 am, in the Key West ballroom.

Get ready to go all in for the Jewish Community Center of Southern Nevada, with celebrities and famous poker professionals hosting the no-limit hold’em poker tournament. The JCC Poker Shootout includes a VIP reception, silent and live auctions, trophies and prizes, ensuring the JCC Celebrity Poker Shootout will be a great time for a great cause. The winner of this event will receive a $10,000.00 entry into the 2008 World Series of Poker main event.

Join blackjack’s reigning princess Erica Schoenberg, GSN High Stakes Poker’s David Benyamine, WSOP seven-card stud world champion Eli Elezra, the glamorous Evelyn Ng, Mike “The Mouth” Matusow, and their friends, for a fun-filled afternoon. Emcee and celebrity poker tournament director Matt Savage will host the first-class event.

“This is an honorable event,” said Savage, “I encourage everyone to attend, no matter what their race, creed or religion.”

The charity poker tournament, hosted by celebrities and famous poker players & women poker players, will benefit the Jewish Community Center of Southern Nevada. What Jewish Community Center you ask? That is precisely the question, as JCC organizers rally to break ground on their own facility. For more than 17 years, Jewish community volunteers and dedicated professionals have coordinated services for thousands of Nevadans from a small office facility. And while the JCC has impacted and benefited this region and its inhabitants on so many levels, the lack of an independent facility has become a logistical nightmare.

Event coordinator Michael Eakman was inspired by the number of programs that the JCC is running out of one humble locale. “It’s hard to believe that one of the fastest growing cities in America, with such a strong Jewish community base, doesn’t have its own center.” Online poker.

Founded in 1991, the JCC currently runs nearly 500 programs in the Las Vegas area, including educational, social, athletic, and cultural projects. And though these programs are designed to promote Jewish values, they also unite, strengthen, enrich, and nurture the entire Southern Nevada community. Download poker wallpapers.

The JCC also feeds thousands of needy families, of every ethnicity, by running one of the largest Food Pantries in Nevada. But doing so requires the JCC to rent the warehouse space necessary to store and distribute inventory. Temporary rentals are required for just about every program the JCC has to offer, including theater space – so that children may be exposed to the arts and music – social halls for various age groups, and sports facilities and fields that afford adults and children the opportunity to participate in athletic programs. The JCC also organizes adult, teen, and senior social clubs, as well as children’s camps, instructional swimming programs, singles groups, restaurant and book clubs, and weekly discussions for parents and toddlers. Play route 66 poker.

“The JCC continues with an amazing mission,” says Schoenberg, “despite not having their own facility.”

The cost to rub elbows and play poker with some of today’s biggest pros is $450. But even if you are unable to attend, there are many ways you can benefit the JCC Celebrity Poker Shootout and its cause, with sponsorship opportunities starting at $200.

Poker News Source: Woman Poker Player

A woman needs a ladies-only poker tournament like a fish needs a bicycle.

Not as catchy as Gloria Steinem's version but when it comes to the World Series of Poker's antiquated Ladies Event, the sentiment is the same. Offering a ladies-only poker tournament is superfluous and offensive to women.

One of the biggest proponents of losing the ladies-only event is one of poker's most famous female poker players, Annie Duke. The top money-earning female in WSOP history has been outspoken in defending her position that poker is one of the only sports where women can compete on an equal playing field with men. Therefore, she says, it makes no sense to have a ladies tournament.

But what about encouraging women to participate in the game, counter those in favor of keeping the women's tournament in the mix while pointing to the existing gender imbalance in the poker room.

That, Duke reasons, isn't something that will be resolved by offering a ladies-only tournament.

"Women are brought up in our culture to be careful with money, not to be aggressive, not to study math and such," she told PokerListings.com in 2005. "These are not traits that are very good to display if you wish to be a professional poker player... I think the numbers will even out though but will never come down to 50-50."

Even so, with so many risk-taking, aggressive, intelligent women these days there's no reason why the ladies can't belly up to the felt with the boys. Keeping an exclusive event for women in the mix in this day and age is a condescending pat on the head from the WSOP. Online poker.

A perfect example of this is the prize package offered at this year's WSOP: before the ladies event - which drew 1,286 women - Series organizers issued a press release trumpeting an exclusive prize package awarded to the winner of the tournament.

In addition to the bracelet, the winner would receive, among other things, tickets to a WNBA game and a makeover from the creator of The Swan, a FOX TV beauty pageant with contestants that have been tummy-tucked and facelifted within an inch of their lives. Play route 66 poker.

Um, I could double-check, but I don't remember the World Series issuing any press releases about free bottle for Rogaine or endorsement contracts for Viagra at any of the other tournaments. So why the extra prizes for the ladies? Because, although it exists and Jeffrey Pollack assures us that it won't go anywhere during his tenure as commissioner, the women's event isn't as important as other events at the World Series.

To say the ladies tournament isn't taken seriously is an understatement. Though top female pros were a rarity at the event, fourth-placed finisher Katja Thater was an exception. But after picking up a gold bracelet in Razz a week later, she admitted to PokerListings.com that she's not a big fan of the gender-based events or some of the poor play she saw during the tournament. Download poker wallpapers.

"I don't like to play ladies only events," she said. "But PokerStars brought me in so I said, okay, let's rock it. Really, we played the first 10 hours, and I had no idea what we had done. It must have been something to do with poker, but I had no idea what. The second day we started playing poker."

Awarding a bracelet for an event where the quality of play is questionable decreases the value of a World Series of Poker bracelet. Like the casino employee tournament or the equally maligned seniors' event, a women's title isn't equal to that of a H.O.R.S.E or Omaha tournament.

The WSOP has a history of eliminating other tournaments that dilute the significance of the gold bracelet (Five-Card Draw, Chinese Poker or, ahem, the businessman's event, anyone?). Play online poker.

Ultimately, though, none of this really matters if the money-hungry 2007 World Series of Poker is any indication.

The ladies tournament grew by about 100 entrants from 2006 and has more than doubled historical playing fields. In other words, the women's event is a cash cow for the WSOP and, until it stops pulling in money, it isn't going anywhere.

Poker News Source: Poker Listings