Don’t let that sensitive Boogie Nights crap fool you. Don Cheadle will take all your money. (Photo by Erik Kabik)

Today at 2 p.m. the Rio brings in the big guns for the Second Annual Ante Up for Africa celebrity poker tournament as part of the 2008 World Series of Poker. Well, as big as you can get without getting world-famous actor and long-time terror of the felt Gabe Kaplan involved, anyway.

Created by Don Cheadle and poker pro Annie Duke, the tournament will benefit ENOUGH, which aims to help with trouble in Darfur, northern Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo; and Not On Our Watch, founded by George Clooney, Don Cheadle, Matt Damon and Brad Pitt, which has adopted Darfur as its initial cause.

Expected to play in today’s tournament are Cheadle, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Adam Sandler, Ray Romano, Charles Barkley, Jason Kidd, Kevin Pollack, Cheryl Hines, George Lopez and Joe Trohman of Fall Out Boy. Poker pros Doyle Brunson, Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu, Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson, Andy Bloch, Phil Hellmuth, Phil Laak, Erik Seidel, Phil Gordon, Rafe Furst, Barry Greenstein and others, subject to availability, will sit as well.

There’s a 45 percent chance of Ocean’s 14 accidentally being filmed during the course of the tournament.

By Jason Scavone

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