Phil Ivey eliminated the host. That is the hand people will repeat from the sixth annual Why Not? Foundation Poker Night: the 11-time World Series of Poker champion arrived late at Fontainebleau Las Vegas, moved all in for 33,000 in chips, and Russell Westbrook made the call.
The tournament was not the point of the night. On Friday, September 18, 2026, inside the resort’s members-only Poodle Room, Westbrook and his Why Not? Foundation raised $912,500 for children and families in Los Angeles and Oklahoma City. Six editions of the poker night have now raised nearly $3 million, according to the foundation’s Business Wire release of September 22.
It was the event’s first year at Fontainebleau after two years at Wynn Las Vegas, and Westbrook’s first poker night since he retired from the NBA in August, closing an 18-season career. Professional Michail Grigorev won the 2026 title, outlasting a final table that included Princess Love and film producer Randall Emmett. DeAndre Jordan, Harrison Barnes, Michael Mizrachi, Bill Perkins and Alan Keating also played. Drea Renee and Vince Van Patten hosted.
Where the money goes
Westbrook called the evening “the biggest night of the year” for the foundation’s work. In the release, he tied the proceeds to the school, the camp the foundation runs every July, Thanksgiving meals in South Los Angeles, and families in Altadena still rebuilding after the Eaton Fire.
The school is Westbrook Academy, the public charter school for grades 6 through 12 in South Los Angeles that the Westbrooks and the foundation opened in 2020. Its Class of 2026 graduated at a rate of 100 percent. The permanent campus in South Gate has science labs, a film studio and two wellness centers on site, and the school staffs one social worker for every 115 students. Los Angeles County’s ratio, by the foundation’s count, is roughly one for every 3,500.
Mental health runs through the rest of the work. This summer the foundation partnered with Shepherd’s Door, Jenesse Center, Neighborhood Survants, Altadena Healing Village and Westbrook Academy on wellness programming across Los Angeles and Altadena, and it continued wildfire recovery work with Eaton Fire families. Its July basketball camp drew more than 200 young people in South Los Angeles and Altadena.
Nina Westbrook, a licensed marriage and family therapist who sits on the foundation’s advisory board, said she joined the work after watching her husband build it over 14 years. In the release she described what the money buys in plain terms: more counselors, more support, and young people who learn they do not have to carry everything alone.
Westbrook founded the foundation in 2012, four years into his NBA career. The poker night began six years ago as a smaller fundraiser and has passed three thresholds in three years: $1.5 million after four editions, $2 million after five, and nearly $3 million now. Tournament seats were priced at $10,000 this year, with the World Poker Tour Foundation as partner.
The host lost his hand to Ivey and stayed to the final table anyway, playing to the last hand of the night. The foundation he built at 23 now pays for a school, a camp and counselors in two cities. That is the score the room kept.
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