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Professional poker players are trained to take as much money as they can from others on the felt. Friend, family, or foe, to a poker player, the affiliation is meaningless.
It may seem like a compromising job description to most, but in the poker world its standard operating procedure.
Much like the stock market, some fair better than others at this cutthroat game of money grab and some are left with pennies in the process.
At this year's World Series of Poker however, many poker players, amateur or professional, are intentionally giving away their money, although they wouldn't view it the same as if they lost a colossal pot.
Thanks to “Put a Bad Beat on Cancer,” a foundation dedicated to cancer prevention research, poker players can donate portions of their tournament winnings to the cause.
In this high stakes game, there are no losers.
Thirty-two-year old Ben Ponzio, a sales manager for a radio station in Chicago, was one of hundreds of players to join the fight against cancer this year.
After meeting professional poker player Phil Gordon at his radio station in Chicago a few years ago, Ponzio ran into him again at the 2005 WSOP. Gordon told him about his charity “Put a Bad Beat on Cancer,” which asks players to pledge one percent of their winnings to the Cancer Research and Prevention Foundation and the Nevada Cancer Institute.
A board member of a food pantry back in Chicago, Ponzio was eager put his poker skills to work, pledging one percent of his poker winnings at the WSOP.
Although Ben Ponzio isn’t a household name in the poker world, he is far from a newbie to the game.
His father Alex taught him to play when he was a kid, and his enthusiasm for the game hasn’t waned since.
It was his father’s battle with cancer that made him feel even more compelled to contribute.
After being diagnosed with colon cancer in 1991, the news was grim and life outside the constrained confines of the hospital was uncertain.
But then the cancer receded and his life hooked to the hospital bed was over, at least they hoped.
Although he was back at home, a blood clot in his leg kept him from being as mobile as he was accustomed to.
As a result, he had to scale back his dentistry work to part time. His passion for golf had to slow down a bit as well.
Life was better, but the aftereffects of cancer still reverberated daily.
Six years later, Alex was diagnosed with lymphoma but yet again overcame it.
Once again, though, the obstacles just kept appearing in his path, testing a resolve that wouldn’t wilt.
Another round with cancer ensued, five years clear of his bout with lymphoma.
Three days before his 50th birthday, Alex died of a heart attack.
A surprise birthday party was already planned, and phone calls had to be made to friends and family expecting to be in town to celebrate the event.
“You call them and they’re thinking you’re calling them about the party and instead you have to tell them he died of a heart attack,” he said. “It was very difficult.”
Alex would have to miss out on his youngest of five sons, Nick, turning 21, an event that had been celebrated with a trip to Las Vegas with all of his boys when they turned 21.
Despite the loss of their father and their ringleader, Ben, the oldest of the group, made sure the tradition continued.

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The “Put a Bad Beat on Cancer” foundation was co-founded by professional poker players Rafe Furst and Gordon, making its debut at the 2003 WSOP.
During one of their stops on their Ultimate Sports Adventure, a 370-day road trip where the two went to nearly every sporting event from the Figure Skating Championships to the Super Bowl via RV, Gordon thought of the idea of raising money for cancer through poker.
Like many, they felt a personal connection to cause.
“Both of us had lost beloved relatives to cancer,” Furst said. “Cancer affects nearly everyone in some shape or form.”
After getting a handful of their friends to join, word began to spread and they were able to raise enough money to fund a research grant for an entire year.
Among one of the contributors that year was an unknown amateur from Tennessee, Chris Moneymaker.
Although he wasn’t aware of the cause when he signed up for the tournament, once he made it to the final table he joined the cause, pledging one percent of his winnings.
Moneymaker went on to win the tournament and 2.5 million dollars.
The cause hit home to Moneymaker, who had a close friend battling through cancer at the time.
Not many will have the opportunity to be able to give back as much as Moneymaker did, but the opportunity to donate even a few hundred bucks when they cash in a tournament is extremely meaningful to those who participate.
“Often time’s people really open up and tell us how much it means to them to be able to use poker to give back,” Furst said.

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Even though poker comes after family and job related obligations are met, Ponzio carves out time to make a handful of poker trips throughout the year to play tournaments, the WSOP headlining the list.
After getting off to a rough start in one of this year’s $2000 No-Limit tournaments, Ponzio’s stack was pressing paper thin and his hopes of making the money grew grimmer as the blinds, unsympathetic to his cause, increased.
Dealt an A-7, Ponzio was all-in and his future in the tournament was bleak.
Up against Q-Q and A-9, Ponzio’s White Sox seemed to have a better chance to win the World Series this year than for him to survive this dire situation.
Percentages could express his chance to win, but such a number would extinguish any remnants of hope.
When the second seven hit the board on the turn, Ponzio went from a 12-1 underdog before the flop to a prohibitive favorite with one card left.
Then an innocuous eight dropped, sealing Ponzio’s remarkable escape.
That stroke of good fortune gave Ponzio breathing room, and he made good on his reprieve, making it to his first WSOP final table.

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Before making the trek down to the Amazon poker room, Ponzio stopped by Starbucks for a little refresher.
In walked Gordon, wanting to know if he indeed made the final table. Gordon had been following him as the tournament got down to the final three tables, giving him advice on how to play the rest of tournament.
When he told Gordon he was one of the short stacks at the final table, Gordon shared his thoughts.
“He wished me good luck and reminded me to be patient because I was a short stack,” he said.
If it weren’t for some of Gordon’s encouragement leading up to the final table, Ponzio may not have made it.
He was the chip leader with three tables left and was absolutely cruising.
Then he got mixed up in a pot and lost about twenty percent of his chips to a short stack, bringing his stack closer to average.
It’s these types of situations that can potentially derail someone when their visions of winning a bracelet get blurred.
Second guessing starts to fester and that confidence requisite for success slips.
Gordon was following the action and assured him to keep his composer despite losing a good chunk of his chips at an inopportune time, fulfilling a role Ben’s younger brother Joe usually aided him with while rail birding him through poker tournaments.
 “At that time, he pulled me aside and reminded me not to go on tilt and that I had enough chips to not take chances like that,” Ponzio said.
He survived long enough to make it to four-handed play and was all-in on the flop when his A-9 connected on a 10-9-3 flop. His opponent out-flopped him by catching a ten, putting his J-10 at about a 3 to 1 favorite.
Once again, Ponzio found another escape route, this time through the backdoor as running clubs doubled him through.
“When I hit that hand I was like ‘That was my chance to get lucky,’” he said. “I don’t want to have to get lucky again.”
He was catching the kind of breaks needed to best a field of 1,619 players.
Ponzio went into heads-up play with a 2-1 chip lead over David Hewitt and he ran hot through the match, extending his lead to 8-1 before his suited K-Q prevailed on the final hand.
At last he secured that piece of jewelry every poker player covets, a gold WSOP bracelet.
Ponzio dreamed of the moment since he was in high school and he had watched nearly every WSOP episode late into the night. He could practically memorize them in his sleep.
But here he was, wearing the bracelet he’d only admired from a distance.
It was his and he still couldn’t believe it.
“I was kind of shocked,” he said. “I was kind of thinking, ‘Why am I not jumping up and down and screaming.’”
Although his father wasn’t there, he thought about the father that taught him the game, the father that was with him the first time he set foot on the Strip.
They’d talked about making a splash in Vegas before and perhaps capturing WSOP infamy, winning that gold bracelet.
It finally happened and he knows his father would’ve been proud. 
“I guarantee he would have been calling everybody he knew,” he said. “He would have been there for sure, probably playing in the tournaments as well. He would have been so excited.”