Last Thursday, David “Doc Sands” Sands, currently the number one ranked player on the PocketFives.com Online Poker Rankings, put a call out to his fellow tournament players on the PocketFives forum to help the victims of the Haiti earthquake. He encouraged everybody to donate a percentage of their Sunday winnings to relief efforts in the impoverished nation. Leading the charge, Sands pledged 10% of his profits up to $10,000, with a minimum of $250.
Approximately 80 PocketFivers posted their pledges on the message board, with the total minimum donations adding up to more than $8,000. Once the results of Sunday’s big tourneys were in, forum members returned to announce their results.
The biggest donator was “JLizard,” who placed second in the $1,000 Heartland Poker Tour event at the Red Rock in Las Vegas. Winning $62,000 and having pledged 10 percent of his profits, he gave $6,100 to the cause, splitting his donations evenly between PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker. Both sites, in turn, matched JLizard’s donation.
Kevin “kice32” Iacofano, promised to give 5% of his profits to Haitian relief efforts. After winning $54,000 in the Full Tilt Poker $1 Million Guaranteed tournament, his donation amounted to $2,650. Mike “SowersUNCC” Sowers pledged 10% of his profits and ended up donating $2,300. Steve “gboro780” Gross, who is fourth in the PocketFives.com Rankings, profited enough to donate $800.
Ironically, Sands, the organizer of the movement and the top man in the rankings, failed to profit on Sunday. He did, however, increase his minimum pledge to $500.
All told, only counting the donations made by those who reported back to the message board, members of PocketFives.com donated just over $13,000 of their Sunday profits to Haitian aid charities. With about another $8,000 pledged from players even if they did not make any money, that brings the total to $21,000. But it doesn’t stop there. Factoring in that most of the donations were likely made through Full Tilt Poker, PokerStars, or Cake Poker, all of which matched all donations, players on PocketFives.com accounted for approximately $40,000 in contributions to Haitian relief, and that’s just what players reported publicly.
For those who would still like to help, several online poker rooms are still providing vehicles for donations. Cake Poker has five “holding tank” tournaments for which players can register. No tournaments will actually take place, but Cake will match every donation dollar for dollar and will accept funds through the end of the month. Full Tilt players can still transfer funds to the account “Aid for Haiti,” and PokerStars players can transfer to “Haiti Fund.” PokerStars has “holding tank” tournaments set up as well. UB.com and Absolute Poker, both members of the CEREUS Network, will host a $10 re-buy tournament on January 20th in which the poker rooms will match 100% of the prize pool and donate that matching portion to charity.
Of course, those who wish to donate can also make contributions to charities directly.
