Charles Barkley is headed back to the tables in Las Vegas to play in a poker tournament about a month after pledging not to gamble. Barkley says it’s all for charity. The former NBA star is scheduled to play in a celebrity poker tournament at the 2008 World Series of Poker on July 2.The “Ante Up for Africa” event is designed to raise money and awareness for the crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan. More than 300,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been displaced since ethnic warfare began in 2003, according to the U.S. presidential envoy to Sudan.

Players in the poker tournament put up $5,000 to play, and are asked to donate at least half their winnings. The event raised more than $500,000 last year and finished with the top two players agreeing to pool their winnings and donate the full $350,000 to the cause. Of the field of 167, 18 players won money.

Barkley, now an NBA analyst for Tuner Network Television, has pledged to donate all of his winnings to one of the two designated charities if he wins next month, said Sal Petruzzi, a TNT spokesman.

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Titan Poker players were celebrating on Sunday as the popular poker room awarded $250,000 in cash in an exciting weekly poker tournament.

Titan Poker, the largest online poker room on the iPoker Network, stages a $250,000 Guaranteed Prize tournament every Sunday evening. Players from across the globe join the tables at the internationally renowned poker room to compete for their share of the prize money.

On Sunday June 15, Carsten Wolf from Germany finished in first place to take home the top prize of $52,500. Closely behind him, French player Jean Louis Fromenton played throughout the night to claim second place and $27,500 in cash.

Jean said: “I started playing at 20:00 and finished at around 4:00 in the morning - and it was worth every minute of gameplay. I am so happy that I won this fantastic prize! I don’t have a special strategy when it comes to poker, I am very easy going and I just really enjoy playing!”

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UltimateBet is guaranteeing to pay out at least 50 Main Event prize packages on June 21st in our appropriately named 50-Seat Guaranteed Tournament.

Each package includes a $10,000 World Series of Poker: Main Event seat and $2,000 for travel and accommodations. For those keeping score, that’s at least $600,000 in WSOP Main Event prize packages.

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Who’d have thought that someone with a handle like OMGClayAiken can kick serious poker butt? Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond has built a solid reputation as an accomplished online high stakes poker player, winning almost a million dollars on one site alone. Now, he has crossed over and faced off with the toughest final table so far at the 2008 World Series of Poker and has come out ahead.

The Final Table of Event #28 at the 2008 WSOP Pot-Limit Omaha w/ Rebuys looked like a Who’s Who list of professional poker. Johnny Chan was there trying to win his 11th bracelet. Phil Helmuth was trying to put a damper on Chan’s plan by trying to win his 12th. Fresh from his WSOP $2,000 Limit Hold’em win, Daniel Negreanu was determined to get his second bracelet of the year. Add John Juanda, David Benyamine, and Kirill Gerasimov to the list and you’ll gain a new respect for OMGClayAiken.

It all came down to heads up with OMGClayAiken facing off with fellow online poker player Adam “the_houdini” Hourani. Galfond had a 3 to 2 chip advantage and he slowly but surely chipped away at Hourani’s stack. In the end, Hourani had to settle for second place and a still massive $493,748 payday.

Read more on Online Phenomenon OMGClayAiken Picks Up First WSOP Bracelet

If this is what good karma does to you, every poker player should start donating to charity more often. Or at least, that is what Barry Greenstein has led us to believe after collecting his third championship WSOP bracelet at Event #26, the $1,500-buyin, Razz tournament at the 2008 World Series of Poker.

Greenstein has simply been flexing his muscles at this year’s WSOP. This is his second final table, having finished in third place at the $5,000 with re-buy No Limit Deuce to Seven Lowball Draw Event. The former Symantec software developer has now accumulated around $6 million in career winnings. With that kind of money, it is no wonder that the so-called Robin Hood of poker can afford to donate his tournament winnings to charities.

The Razz tournament attracted a total of 413 players and a $618,345 prize pool. As with other less known poker games, meaning NOT Texas Hold’em, players found themselves facing a relatively small but tough field peppered with poker pros including Andy Bloch, Men “The Master” Nguyen, Vanessa Rousso, Doyle Brunson, defending champion Katja Thater, Greg Raymer and Huck Seed.

Read more on Greenstein Dominates WSOP Razz Event to Win Third Bracelet

It took Mike Matusow 12 hours to outlast a stellar poker line-up to win his third World Series of Poker bracelet at Event #18, the $5,000 No-Limit 2-7 Draw with Rebuys. Every seat at the final table held a poker star and the players held eight WSOP bracelets between them. For his hard work, Matusow earned $537,862 for first place.

In one of the toughest final tables ever, Matusow found himself facing recent WSOP bracelet winner Erick Lindgren, two-time WSOP bracelet winner Barry Greenstein, 2007 WSOP Player of the Year Tom Schneider and fellow bad boy of poker Tony ‘G’ Guoga.

Event #18 was one of the obscure games with a large enough buy-in to attract only an elite field of 85 players including Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan, Erik Seidel and Phil Hellmuth.

There were 272 rebuys and add-ons, building a massive $1,735,020 prize pool. After his win, Matusow ran up to the crowd screaming as his supporters applauded his achievement. “I never gave up, I played with the greatest patience I could. I’m really proud of myself,” said Matusow after his phenomenal win.

Read more on Mike “The Mouth” Matusow Claims Third WSOP Bracelet

Who would have thought that a guy with the name Huckleberry can terrorize the pants off opponents in a poker table? It doesn’t help that he stands an ominous 6 ft and 7 inches tall. It is probably a relief that four-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner Huck Seed is actually one of the quietest players in poker, rarely speaking at the table. No surprise there. Someone as poker savvy as Huck can let his skills do the talking.

Born in 1968, in Corvallis, Montana, Huck Seed showed an early interest in mathematics and sports. Seed was a member of the 1987 Montana All-State basketball team and was a star player on Caltech’s basketball team where he was an electrical engineering student. Seed took a leave of absence in 1989 to start playing poker and ended up turning his back on college all together.

As of 2007, Seed’s tournament winnings exceed $3,500,000. He won the 1996 World Series of Poker main event, taking home the $1,000,000 first prize. He also came in 6th place at the 1999 WSOP. At the 2007 Main Event, Seed finished 73rd out of a staggering 6,358 players.

Read more on Poker Player Profile: Huck Seed

Wearing the same pair of sunglasses Anthony Rivera wore when he won a WSOP bracelet in the $10,000 Mixed event a few days earlier, Svetlana Gromenkova came out on top in a field of 1,190 female poker players in the $1,000 World Series of Poker Ladies World Championship. The event was the second-largest women’s only event ever and the prize pool was a staggering $1,082,900.

“I want people to know I’m a good player,” said Svetlana “Glum Girl” Gromenkova. “And they will know it now.”

Gromenkova had to withstand two bad beats from Anh Le to win the tournament. In fact, it was looking pretty grim for Gromenkova when Anh Le doubled up when she pushed with A-5 and Gromenkova called with A-K. “Honestly I thought that maybe it was not meant to be,” said Gromenkova. “She gave me bad beats twice at the final table so I was very happy that I won eventually.”

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Vancouver resident and former amateur ice hockey player Duncan “Pumper” Bell came out on top in a field of 1,397 players to win his first World Series of Poker bracelet in the $2,500 No-Limit Hold’em Event. This was the 13th event in the 2008 World Series of Poker.

Called “Pumper” for his aggressive poker strategy to “pump” or build up the pot, Duncan started the day with a massive chip lead and ended up winning the event in 73 hands in just three and a half hours. For his efforts, Bell took home $666,777. This is the second time Bell has cashed in a World Series of Poker event. In 2005, Bell came in at 318th place at the main event for $21,070.

Surprisingly, none of the big names of the poker world made it to the final table of Event 13. In fact, it was the first time for all nine finalists to reach the final table of a World Series of Poker event. Four of the nine finalists had yet to cash in a WSOP event.

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A 27-year old businessman from Kansas City, MO, with the unassuming name Grant Hinkle earns a WSOP bracelet the hard way by coming out on top in a 3,929 player event. This event will go down in books as the largest preliminary event and the fourth longest tournament in World Series of Poker history.

This is Hinkle’s first-ever cash at a major poker venue. Hinkle joined the $1,500 No-Limit Hold ‘Em Tournament which was the 2nd event in the 2008 World Series of Poker. Although Hinkle previously had no plans of entering another event, with $831,462 in prize money, he now plans on entering the main event. “I have always wanted to play the main event,” Hinkle enthused. “It’s just a dream come true.”

Read more on Amateur Takes Down Largest Preliminary Event in WSOP History