The “ALS Ice Bucket Challenge” has gone viral and celebrities from all over the World are seen dousing ice chilled water buckets over them, raising funds for the ALS charity, and challenging three of their friends/colleagues for the same. Over the Internet, you can find videos of famous personalities and celebrities taking “Ice Bucket Challenge”. And the Poker world is also not untouched from this noble yet notorious challenge.
The “Ice Bucket Challenge” is an attempt by ALS association to raise awareness and funds for ALS (or Lou Gehrig’s disease) among people. In this challenge, a participant has to douse a bucket of iced cold water on him/herself and dare some of (generally 3) of his/her friends for the same. The person who fails in this challenge has to donate $100 to ALS association. However, the players who successfully perform this act also donate some amount for this noble cause.
After big stars like Justin Bieber, Charlie Sheen, and Robert Downey Jr., it is time for Poker stars like Phil Hellmuth, Dan Bilzerian, Jorryt Van Hoof, Antonio Esfandiari, Jeff Gross, etc to accept this chilling charity challenge. Out of this latest list of Poker pros who are participating in this challenge, Phil Hellmuth was perhaps the first one to accept this challenge. Hellmuth accepted this challenge while he was in Poker Night in America held at Upstate New York.
After showering himself with ice-cold water and filming it, Hellmuth challenged three of his friends, Poker’s all-time money leader ‘Daniel Negreanu’, WSOP 2012 Big One for One Drop Winner ‘Antonio Esfandiari’, and Executive Director of WSOP ‘Ty Stewart’ to do the same. Esfandiari accepted this challenge from Hellmuth very gladly, whereas Antonio not only dumped one bucket but three buckets of water on him and challenged his Poker best friend Jeff Gross, Olympic star Michael Phelps, and Bill Parkins.
It did not take much time for Gross to accept this challenge and with the businessman turned Poker player Bill Parkins, the due poured iced water. Moreover, the WSOP director Ty Stewart as well accepted the challenge of Hellmuth and challenged all the 2014 November Niners and 13 times bracelet winner Carl’s Jr. ad.
But give it up to Dan Bilzerian- Pokers naughty boy for taking the challenge to another level. He can be seen in the below Facebook video completing his ice bucket challenge. The challenge continues to enthrall and people continue to donate.