I was so honored to be invited to play in the 19 person Charity Poker tournament for the Montel Williams Show. The cast of characters for this poker tournament will be great for the show airing in September, and more importantly great for his foundation http://www.montelms.org/
Montel was diagnosed with MS and has raised a great deal of money and awareness for it’s research. Brad Garrett from Everybody Loves Raymond was the first one knocked out, but was a great joy to be around. Professional Poker Players Jamie Gold, Annie Duke and Robert Williamson played as well as two important businessmen and dear friends Jeff Yarchever and Marshall Sylver. Jeff from Jet Apparel donated $10,000 as well as got other people in the room to match his donation. Mr. Sylver actually started the $10,000 donation trend by giving a heartfelt speech about being on Montel’s show when he was 23 years old, and now has an immensely successful career as a Hypnotist and Motivational Speaker.

Mai and Montel when it was down to two players…

The COOLEST part of this whole story is……… The CEO Poker Champion (yours truly) ended up playing Heads-Up with the 2006 World Series of Poker Champion Jamie Gold!!!! When it got down to the two of us we both made it clear that we would donate the entire prize pool to Montel’s MS Foundation so it was truly great for everyone involved!

Steve Cyr is the good soul that brought all the players together for this amazing charitable cause. I’m holding up his book “Whale Hunt in the Desert”
100 percent of the cash and checks on the table were donated to http://www.montelms.org/