Celebrities showed up Wednesday to play the second annual Ante Up for Africa event organized by Don Cheadle and Annie Duke at the Rio All Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

"I'm looking forward to whipping a lot of celebrity rear end. I tweaked my game, and my game is really solid." said Montel Williams before the charity Texas Hold 'em tournament at the World Series of Poker began.

Williams and 87 other players, including Hollywood celebrities such as Don Cheadle, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Jason Alexander, Shannon Elizabeth, George Lopez, Adam Sandler and Ray Romano, took part in the no-limit event to raise money for the Sudanese refugees and play a few hands of poker. Charles Barkley was also one of the invited celebrities, the 45-year-old former Sixers and Phoenix Suns star, who had a legal episode with the Wynn Las Vegas casino over some pending debts, said he would donate all his winnings to charity and didn't plan to spend a minute in Las Vegas after the tournament ends.

Players donated prize money from the second annual "Ante Up for Africa" event to charities working in the Darfur. Don Cheadle and poker pro Annie Duke joined a year ago to raise money and awareness for the North African country, in where more than 300,000 people have perished since 2003 in a bloody civil war and 2.5 million people live in refugee camps.

The tournament raised money for two charity foundations, ENOUGH, a project co-founded in 2007 by the International Crisis Group and the Center for American Progress and Not On Our Watch, a group co-founded by actors Don Cheadle, Damon, George Clooney and Brad Pitt.

"It's just great to see everybody. Don't expect to win, because it's mine." said Cheadle, who was later eliminated by Alice in Chains guitarist Jerry Cantrell.

Players in the poker tournament paid $5,000 to enter, and were asked to donate at least half their winnings. The event’s prize pool totaled $418,000. Last year the event raised more than $500,000 for the charities and finished with the top two players getting $350,000 in prizes and donating the money to charity.

"Charity doesn't have to be boring, it doesn't have to be a burden. We want people to have a really good time." Duke said.