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“I will be placing equal priority on progressing as a poker player and giving back to my community. As a young poker player with a talent that brings me financial abundance, I feel it’s my responsibility to give back to people in need who are hurting financially.” These were the words of 2010 BLUFF Magazine Player of the Year Sorel Mizzi in a press release announcing the launch of his new charity, Poker Players Against Poverty.

Poker Players Against Poverty is committed to ending homelessness and poverty, and according to the press release: “With Sorel in the lead, Poker Players Against Poverty will recruit other like-minded poker players who will commit service days and percentages of their tournament winnings in the fight against poverty.” For his part Mizzi has pledged an initial donation of $10,000, as well as committing to donating a further 5% of his tournament winnings for the remainder of his career.

Mizzi is not only recognized as one of the best poker players in the world, but has unfortunately garnered a lot of negative press due to his violation of online poker sites terms and conditions, which has led to several suspensions, most notably a three-year ban from Full Tilt Poker. Mizzi’s name has also surfaced in other poker cheating scandals including allegations of dealing from the bottom of the deck against John Racener at the 2011 PCA in a private Chinese Poker game. Making matters worse for Mizzi have been his responses to these allegations, which many find condescending, full of blame on others, and often contradictory.

However you may feel about Mizzi, the creation of Poker Players Against Poverty shows how people can wear many different hats.