Last week at F15teen, insideSTL.com hosted our first poker tournament. To be quite candid, to our surprise, not only did we have 100 players show up, but the event went incredibly smoothly. On top of that, and most importantly, we were able to send more than $4,000 to the Prevent Cancer Foundation the next day.

Personally, it's really a thrill to be able to do that, and I'm sure many of the people who participated last week feel some gratification in knowing that they were able to contribute to a great cause.

While I'm thrilled that insideSTL.com could donate that much money to Prevent Cancer, I would really like to continue to do this and focus on donating money to local causes.

And, that's how we got where we are with today's annoucement:

A week from today at The Church Key (4127 Manchester in The Grove), insideSTL.com will host a poker tournament with a large portion of the proceeds going to the Honoring Hummert Foundation.

This charity was set up by family, friends, and fellow firefighters of Ryan Hummert, who was shot and killed while on duty for the Maplewood Fire Department. It will have been one month next Thursday since a man lit his car on fire and then took aim at firefighters and police officers called to the scene. Two police officers were shot and injured, and firefighter Ryan Hummert was shot and lost his life at the age of 22.

We want to honor his memory and raise money in his name next Thursday at The Church Key. Just like last week at F15teen, we will begin taking registrations at 5 p.m. We'll begin play at 6 p.m.

You can click here to download a PDF registration form so you don't have to worry about filling one out when you get there...just to speed up the process.

Like last week, the buy-in is free. We would like to suggest a donation of $100, but you can play in the tournament for free.

The Church Key is offering food and drink specials for those who donate. Here is what they are kind enough to do for those who come to play and donate:

-$4 9 inch pizzas

-$4 sandwiches

-$2 domestics

-$3 well drinks

And, The Church Key is going to donate 10% of the total bar tab to the Honoring Hummert Foundation.

I learned two things from last week that I want to make sure we improve for the next tournament:

1. The blinds went up too quickly. In paying tribute to Mike Martz, we'll fix that. However, keep in mind that we can't have this thing go until 2 a.m., so the blinds will have to go up...just not as aggressively as we had them last week.

2. The prizes were too top heavy for the top 3 finishers. We're going to spread out some good prizes for everybody at the final table. However, this time, so we can announce the prizes in advance, we will not be giving out cash. We'll be going out and buying some prizes and/or getting some donated, and that's what we'll be giving away next week at The Church Key. I will say if spending 4 or 5 hours playing poker and wanting a giant cash prize pool is your goal, Lumiere, Harrah's, and Ameristar have some wonderful games for you to play.

Once again, registration begins at 5:00. Play begins at 6:00. We're going to set aside 45 spots for firefighters and friends of Ryan's, however, the plan is to have about 115 to 120 players total, so that means at least 70 spots will be open to the public as things stand right now.

We're looking forward to another great event and paying homage to a local firefighter next Thursday at The Church Key.

Log-in to post your comments, or you can email me with questions or comments at tmckernan@insidestl.com.