One of the events leading up to this weekend’s running of the Kentucky Derby is the Derby Poker Championship. Fronted by Phil Hellmuth, Robert Williamson III, and legendary University of Louisville coach Denny Crum, the event promises to be one for the ages. Poker News Daily caught up with Crum to talk about the gala, which will play out on Thursday night, April 29th, from the Palace Theatre in Louisville.
Poker News Daily: Thanks for joining us. Give us a preview of this week’s Derby Poker Championship.
Denny Crum: The charity that they’re going to be working with this year is called Blessings in a Backpack. I was involved with a charity called Kentucky Harvest way before they started working with Blessings in a Backpack, which is a charity where kids who are on the lunch program can go home on Friday afternoon and have backpacks full of food for their families to have over the weekend.
They asked me if I wanted to participate and I said I’d love to. Now, the three of us are hosts. We have a ton of celebrities who are going to be a part of it like Ron White, Corey Pavin, Jennifer Tilly, Maria Ho, Trishelle Cannatella, Darren Sharper, Tiffany Michelle, Robbie Alvarado, and a couple of other jockeys.
They’re going to have a VIP room and people can just watch the game if they’d like. There will also be a disc jockey. It’s going to be a fun event with a lot of different people involved. I’m in favor of anything you can do for charity that helps kids. The poker law here in Kentucky says that a minimum of 40% of the prize pool has to go to charity, so they’ll benefit as well. It’s a great cause and a bunch of good guys will be there.
PND: Talk about being the official Kentucky ambassador of the Derby Poker Championship.
Denny Crum: My college roommate used to own a card room in Oceanside, California. When I’d go out there, we’d play golf in the morning, go to the track in the afternoon, and have a poker tournament at night. You couldn’t have a better day than that. We’re going to do basically the same thing here, except we’ll be playing golf at Valhalla Golf Club and when we finish, it’ll be time for the poker tournament. The Derby is such a great event and I haven’t missed one in 39 years. Being a host along with Phil Hellmuth, who I know personally, is a no-brainer.
PND: Tell us about the host venue, the Palace Theatre.
Denny Crum: It’s a gorgeous building that hosts different events. It is going to be a world-class event that will grow as we continue to do it and we’re hoping to get a couple hundred players.
PND: What is Denny Crum’s top poker moment?
Denny Crum: I have played in a couple of WSOP tournaments, but haven’t cashed. In the first one, I played three hands in 7.5 hours. On the first hand, I was in the big blind and got pocket aces. I won the small blind and that was it. I didn’t play another hand for a long time. I finally got a pair of eights, but got drawn out on the river, and then pickled up tens three hours later. That was my worst poker experience.
There were 8,600 people in that event. I had just picked up my first hand, which was aces, and heard from behind me, “Oh no!” Everyone turned around to see what had happened and the guy who was screaming was the son of one of the professional players. He started with pocket aces and the flop came A-10-10. He had aces full on his first hand. The other guy had pocket tens. It’s a crazy game. I’ve had some success and have the patience for it.
