Whitney Tilson: Education Reform Now Charity Poker Tournament; Carmen; Last Day Of Climbing

From Whitney Tilson’s latest email to colleagues

1) In an extraordinary piece of good fortune, in the few hours I’m in Verona this evening on my way home I stumbled upon a performance of Carmen at the hisroric open air arena! See attached pic.

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Q2 hedge fund letters, conference, scoops etc

2) After nearly three weeks in Europe, I land tomorrow afternoon, just in time for the annual poker tournament I co-host to benefit Education Reform Now. It's always an awesome event and we have a few tickets left, so if you can make it last minute, please do so - see registration link below.

3) This is what I just posted to FB:

https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10156395009238632&id=815148631

A few hours ago I finished my annual Alps climbs to support the KIPPsters climbing the mountain to college, and I'm pleased to report that I'm alive!

I had a world-class guide and was never in any danger - though I'll admit that being 1,000 feet up on a sheer wall, no matter how well secured, does give me some butterflies...offset by the spectacular beauty and pure joy of being atop three summits that very people ever reach.

(Keep this on the down low, but I love the fact that my climbs APPEARED to be super dangerous, which helped me exceed my fundraising goal of $100,000 for KIPP! ;-)

Below are pics and my writeup of my third and final climb today. For the same from the last two days, see: https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10156392171693632&id=815148631

I'm on the train to Verona, then taking an early train to Venice for an 11am flight home.

After climbing the two side peaks (Oeste and Piccolo) the last two days, today Magnus and I tackled the Cime Grande, going up the Dulfer route, shown in pics 1&2. It's "only" rated V (5.7), quite a bit below the VI+ (5.10b) we climbed yesterday on Cime Piccolo, but it ended up being just as tough for me for four reasons:

1) I was tired after two hard days of climbing;

2) Most of the climb involved going up "chimneys", I'm which my hands and feet were spread wide on two walls, which was entirely new to me;

3) Much of the route was wet and therefore slippery (another new challenge for me); and

4) It was REALLY cold! For almost the entire climb, it was 40 degrees with a wind chill bringing it down to ~30. I hadn't packed more than a sleeveless fleece and cheap windbreaker so I was shivering - and it's hard to climb a technical route when you can't feel your hands and feet! Fortunately, on the 2nd of 8 pitches I put on my gloves, which turned out to be a great move, as my fingers warmed up and I could jam my hands (sometimes my entire arm) into cracks. Overall, it was a "by any means necessary" climb, as I pulled on gear and used my elbows, hips, knees and shoulders to get up the route!

Pics 3&4 are at the base of the wall, 5&6 on the way up (you can barely see Magnus in 5 - we climbed up through that hole), 7&8 from the summit three hours later (we're holding up three fingers to celebrate nailing all three peaks), 9&10 are Magnus on the way down, and 11 is the Tre Cime from the valley as we're driving out (please ignore the fact that I haven't showered in more than three days!) - Oeste on the right (while it looks taller in this picture, it's actually 15m shorter than the Cime Grande just to the left of it). The tiny one you can barely see on the left is Piccolo.

Education Reform Now Charity Poker Tournament & Casino Night

We are pleased to invite you to the 9th annual Take ‘Em to School Charity Poker Tournament to benefit Education Reform Now, presented by the World Poker Tour Foundation. ERN is a non-profit organization committed to ensuring that all children have access to a high-quality public education, regardless of race, gender, geography, or socioeconomic status.

This year’s tournament will be held once again at Gotham Hall on Wednesday, July 18 at 6:00pm. It will feature 250 poker players battling for prizes that in past years have included a Sebonack golf trip with a one night cottage stay, a table at Rao's for 8, power lunches with some of the world’s top investors, and a set visit for The Walking Dead. For those attending as cocktail guests there will be a variety of casino games and entertainment. The event also features a full swing golf simulator, which will host Long Drive and Closest to the Pin contests. In addition, we are happy to announce that our guest speaker will be Rhodes Scholar, best-selling author, army combat veteran, and social entrepreneur Wes Moore, the CEO of the Robin Hood Foundation.

The event always includes special guests and in the past has featured poker stars Phil Hellmuth, Erik Seidel, Layne Flack, Vanessa Selbst, Andy Frankenberger and Samantha Abernathy; WPT TV hosts Vince Van Patten, Lynn Gilmartin, Tony Dunst and Mike Sexton; sports icons Alex Kovalev, John Starks, Charles Oakley, Dwight Gooden, Pat Kelly, Charles Smith and Allan Houston; Avenue Capital Founder and Milwaukee Bucks Owner Marc Lasry; co-creator of the hit Showtime series Billions and co-writer of poker blockbuster Rounders Brian Koppelman; New York Undercover and Cool Runnings actor Malik Yoba; magician of Penn & Teller fame Penn Jillette; America's Next Top Model contestant Jamie Rae and Shannon Elizabeth from American Pie.