Hollywood Glamour meets Poker Professionals

Hollywood stars and poker pros to participate in charity event at Commerce Casino in the 8th Annual WPT Invitational event, making it the most glamorous event of the season.

The stakes will be raised in Hollywood on Saturday 20th February when some of the entertainment industry's biggest stars will pit their skills against some of today's top poker pros in the Annual World Poker Tour Invitational. WPT once again aims to raise funds for a worthy cause and has paired up with Los Angeles based charity, Chrysalis to host an exclusive invitation only event at Commerce Casino.

Stars and Pros alike are being enticed to this red carpet event by the promise of a share of the $200,000 prize pool as well as a $25,000 seat to the WPT championship in April. During the first two hours players will have the chance to do a one-time only $200 "re-buy" to receive an extra $10,000 in chips. Perhaps the greatest benefit to this is Chrysalis, as 100% of the profits from these buy-ins will go straight to the charity, enabling them to continue providing some of Las most economically disadvantaged people with the chance of becoming self-sufficient. Funds will also be raised by auctioning tickets to the event, 100 of which were donated by WPT. Commerce Casino has also donated the prize fund and the final six players will compete for a $100,000 first place prize including the WPT Championship seat.

Now in its eighth year, the WPT Invitational continues to grow and evolve and the organisers hope to make 2010 bigger and better than ever before. Says John Griffo, Commerce Casino Director of Poker Operations, "we have added 100 additional Invitational seats for play and the first 100 players to buy in to the LAPC main event will receive entry into this invite-only tournament." This combined with a $10,000 Heads up event, a $25,000 tournament and the WPT LAPC Main Event will make for "a truly exciting and unparalleled week of poker."

Rikki Lake, Vince Vaughn, Ray Romano, Jason Alexander, Don Cheadle, Paris Hilton, Michael Vartan, Mena Survari and Jon Favreau are some of the celebs who have competed against Pro legends such as Phil Ivey, Jennifer Harman, Doyle Brunson, Gus Hansen and Chris 'Jesus' Ferguson.

Although tickets to the event are not open to the public, poker fans need not be disappointed. The final table will be played on the WPT stage and will be televised on Fox Sports Net.