Thirteen groups of UW students will be battling each other in a high stakes poker tournament worth $1,300. The money, however, will all be donated to charity. The tournament began last night and continues tonight.

The Alpha Phi sorority is hosting a “King of Hearts” Texas Hold’em tournament involving 13 fraternities to raise money for cardiac care at the UW Medical Center.

The winner will receive an Xbox 360 and a dinner hosted by the Alpha Phi sorority.

“We actually have so much excitement for this in the house,” said Jamie Thornton, philanthropy chair of Alpha Phi. “This is our first fraternity philanthropy.”

Alpha Phi members will be dealers at the event, and will also serve appetizers and “mocktails” to the poker players. Each fraternity paid $100 to enter into the tournament and sent five members to compete for the grand prize.

Participating fraternities were also enthusiastic about the event.

“Part of what makes these philanthropies so fun is that you get to participate in cool events and do it for a good cause,” said Angelo Atienza, philanthropy chair of Sigma Alpha Epsilon.

Alpha Phi members came up with the idea for the event by searching for other successful fundraisers their sister sororities have done in the past. They decided on a poker tournament because they wanted to combine philanthropy with something that would also be fun for a wide range of fraternity members.

“We thought it’d be a good idea because we had a lot of poker players in the house,” Atienza said.

The poker tournament already raised $1,300, which was much more than Thornton had anticipated. The sorority will donate all of the proceeds to the UW Medical Center. The Xbox 360 was given to the sorority from an anonymous donor.

The Alpha Phi members regularly contribute to the UW Medical Center; the sorority raised $45,000 last year at its primary event, an auction and dinner called the Red Dress Gala, to benefit the hospital.

[Reach reporter Andrew Doughman at news@thedaily.washington.edu.]