Life’s A Bluff - Interview -
“Cowboy” Kenna James
Bicycle Casino
October 2006
Matt Waldron

Poker and good stories seem to go hand in hand. I’m not talking about your run-of-the-rail bad beat stories, but the ones that follow the greats based on their lives and crazy times. There are lots of great stories about players like Scotty Nguyen, Freddie Deeb or Sammy Farha overcoming tough odds to make it to the States and make it big. Or business barons like Andy Beal and Jerry Buss, that donate huge sums of their winnings to charity every year. Or the legends of the game like Doyle Brunson, Stu Unger and Chip Reese that have given us poker as we know it today.

You don’t hear much about the average guy from the Mid-West, who worked his way up through the ranks the hard way. Someone who wedged his way onto the televised tournament circuit and made it big, but still gives back to charity in time and money? Well, that’s because there haven’t been a lot of people like “Cowboy” Kenna James.

Brought up in Chicago, moved to California, Kenna worked on his dream of being a top poker player well before the “Moneymaker” boom of 2003. In fact, Kenna started out in 1996 at the not-so-glamorous L.A. card room and race track, Hollywood Park as a dealer. A year later, he started to play in the myriad of lower-limit tournaments around Southern California. By 1999 he was setting up and directing tournaments internationally as far away as Moscow and playing professionally at home as a prop at the Crystal Palace Casino. Like many professional gamblers, he had his swings; he went broke, bounced back and kept on climbing. He credits good friends and relationships as the keys to surviving those times in his life. Now, as a WPT Champion and multiple major title holder, “Cowboy” James hasn’t forgotten the people that got him there or who he is at heart.

While I was watching Kenna at the Bicycle Casino’s Big Poker Oktober shoot-out event, talking with him between breaks and on the cash table floor, as well as interviewing him, he was inundated with well wishers and pats on the back from staff, friends, acquaintances, random passer-bys, sports figures, business luminaries and celebrities. No one else saw more ‘action’ wherever he went. This was compared to attendees at the Bike during my stretch there such as Jerry Buss, James Woods, Don Cheadle and Makai Pfifer, (that in itself is a fun footnote to the evening). Kenna was friendly and warm with every single one of these well wishers regardless of their social status. He even took the time to plop down at an open cash table and give a pro-hopeful advice on developing their game and making it into the pro circuit. It was a brilliant conversation that I was allowed to sit in on and made the trip well worth the money I blew on the tournament buy-in the previous day.

The biggest feather in that black cowboy hat, however, is Kenna’s charity work with The Wounded Warrior Project. Being from a family that has served in the US military for as many generations as we can count back, its principle is pretty near and dear to the hearts of the whole Waldron clan. Kenna received a bit of fan-email from a member of Screaming Eagle Poker about their project and helped to set in motion charity events that would raise a significant amount of money for a worthy charity. Rather than listen to me blather on about it, I’ll let Kenna tell you in his own words from this great interview from the Big Poker Oktober tournament at the Bicycle Casino.

LaB: Matt Waldron
KJ: Kenna James

LaB: OK, so this is Matt Waldron here with “Life’s A Bluff” talking to Kenna James. I’ve been listening to him and following him around today, so it’s been great to have him put up with me and let me listen in to all the amazing things going on with him right now, but the thing I’m most interested in is talking to you about is the “Wounded Warrior” project which, correct me if I’m wrong here, but basically collects funds for family members and soldiers coming back from Iraq that have been wounded?

KJ: The Wounded Warrior Project is an organization that assists wounded men and women coming back from Iraq or Afghanistan or wherever, who now have lost an arm or a leg or limbs and pretty much their military service has ended and now they have to adjust to civilian life and certainly there’s some change and shift that happens especially with the 19, 20 and 21 year old that come back and have to go back to their family and the workplace. It’s a non governmental agency that helps with rehabilitation, prosthetics, stuff like that. And gets them back, you know, into the swing of things here. I think it’s the least I can do, these guys put their lives on the line and there isn’t a lot for them when they come back like this.

LaB: So can you tell me how they set it up? I mean is it a percentage of tournament winnings? Is it. . .

KJ: No, how it started was, I first heard of, somebody hit my website from Screaming Eagle Poker which is this group of soldiers and they play poker out there on the front lines and they support this cause because it’s their brothers and sisters. They see them when they get injured and they want to support them when they come back home injured. So through them I was linked to this charity. I was going to try and get over to Iraq and play with the guys, and just try and boost morale when that got shot down, I just looked for another way so we ended up some poker here. The internet company that sponsors me (Sun Poker) agreed to host a charity event and so we did that and we raised over $70,000. And then Mike Sexton donated $100,000 of his Tournament of Champions winnings, so it was over $170,000 that went to the Wounded Warrior Project. So it is primarily things like that and I donate 1% of all my tournament wins to them throughout the year. Then the other thing is the Screaming Eagle guys that are coming back from overseas and we’re going to have a big just shindig, BBQ, seminar and tournament at my house here in a couple of weeks in Las Vegas.

LaB: That is pretty awesome and I know that I thank you and many, many more unheard-from people thank you.

KJ: You’re welcome, like I said, it’s the least I could do.

LaB: Because the point of “Life’s A Bluff,” it’s a humor oriented site. It’s a little bit of fun and advice aimed at people who are not willing “serious” enough to sit at the 2+2 forum but to get together in a community setting to share the humorous side of poker and help each other get better while sharing a laugh.

KJ: Yours is a very important part of life. If you don’t laugh at it sometimes, we’d be crying too much. Certainly some of us need to find the humor in things, so I’ll look forward to checking out the site.

LaB: Good deal, we’ll look forward to having you check it out. I’m also curious to know if the PPL, that you will be a part of, is going to help out a group like the Wounded Warrior project. What will they be bringing to it?

KJ: I mean the PPL is gonna be having a lot things going on to begin with, but I think in short order, it will have charity functions and tournaments tied into it at some point. I’m not sure even, it’s gonna be a new organization that is going to be fighting for its life. You know like a newborn baby, but certainly I talked with Chip Reese who’s heading up the organization and he’s already said that there will be on special tournaments through the year for charity in which all the proceeds will be donated. Some of them, probably from the players that are involved like Barry Greenstein, you know with Children’s Charity’s, or perhaps the Wounded Warrior Project or I’m sure there’s a lot of the players now that are involved in a lot of different types of charities, and I’m sure the PPL will look to make a difference in people’s lives and share its success..

LaB: Commenting on a very similar thing, I think the stigma is that poker players are the degenerate guys, they’re gamblers and they’re not these useful people. But as I’ve often told people, the people I play poker with regularly, I’d take every cent I had in my wallet and hand it to them on a loan, but I have family that I wouldn’t give $20 to if I every planned on seeing it again.

KJ: I don’t know if I’d lend it to a poker player either. I don’t think he’d steal it from me, but he’s more likely to lose it in a game. (laugh)

LaB: Fair enough, you can’t dispute that possibility. On the other hand, you see all these things going on like, Gavin has kept the media closely involved as he has raised thousands of dollars for the Baby Hannum Fund and other top pros as well donating time, dollars and their celebrity to earn money for worthy causes. Have you heard about this stuff Gavin has been doing?

KJ: I did, I know. . .Gavin’s a friend of mine, and he helped me out and came to our V.I.P. silent auction, he bought an Iraqi flag that was sent back that was signed by the guys on the front line, so that went to the charity. He bought that for $5,000 as well. So he’s actively involved in charity and yeah, there’s a lot, of course Barry Greenstein, Phil Gordon, and there’s a lot of players involved now, and people realize that you actually win giving back. That’s a concept that you learn, that was foreign to poker players maybe a couple decades ago, but the game has certainly changed. I don’t think that with the popularity of poker today and everybody playing it (people are) realizing the misnomer, so I don’t think that we are burdened with that stigma anymore.

LaB: So, obviously not to cast a shadow on yourself, but where I was pointing it, is that you see all these charitable acts going on, you see all these things going on, in a sport in its infancy. Meanwhile you see guys at the pro level in other sports, that unless they have a massive corporate TV sponsorship relation, like say the United Way, there is little organized action. We have to take out examples like Reggie Bush who’s done phenomenal work but still has Pepsi as a sponsor. You just don’t see that kind of work in major league sports, and here in its (poker’s) infancy people are taking up their own time, their own money without any guarantees or corporate ties between these things. I think it just goes above and beyond, and maybe I’m bragging too hard.

KJ: No, no I think it’s hard to say, because I was watching something on TV the other day there’s still a lot of people in major league sports that are watching the New Orleans game that are still working on that Katrina Fund. I think there’s a lot, there’s a lot of big things, charity events that people do, and when you’re fortunate enough to be a professional, whether it be in poker or sports that you realize a sense of obligation, duty to give something back, we’re so blessed to earn a good living doing something we like to do and probably it’s just a good feeling to be able to make a difference in someone else’s life and appreciate what you have.

LaB: Well, that is very diplomatic of you and I appreciate the input. I think it’s absolutely wonderful what you’ve been doing. Is there anything else you got going on that you’d like to talk about?

KJ: So much going on. I’m excited about the new Professional Poker League. That will kick ass. Then I try things, right now, you get on (along?) with the success of poker and how things got so big so quickly, some of us, at least for myself, I’ll speak for myself, kinda the way our lives got taken over in a certain aspect. It got on a rat wheel so to speak. We’re going to keep up trying to build websites, marketing and you know, to this mass media crowd that came along all of a sudden. You know, I’m trying to get perspective on that and slow down a little bit. I try to keep an honest blog on my website, KennaJames.com to let people know what it feels like to be out on the tour and it’s not always as romantic as it sounds, traveling around the world and playing poker tournaments. It is exciting, it’s definitely that, I’m not saying that it’s not. I’m saying that it can be grueling, emotionally and physically taxing. So adjusting to that and catching up in the grind of the past couple of years, running to try and keep up. And I’m not even sure what the question is, I’m just kinda rambling. . .

LaB: That’s ok, just a few other things you’re excited about. . .

KJ: I’m really excited about the Professional Poker League that it is going to be established and run out of Vegas, so I’ll be able to stay at home, spend more time with my children. Not be on the road, week in and week out. So that will give me more stability and sanity in my life, which I’m looking forward to.

LaB: and you’re family is in Las Vegas. . .

KJ: well, my kids are from my first wife, so it’s important that when I do have them, I have the time to spend with them, so having a home at The Venetian, it will be nice. It’s like what Dorothy said it’s great to travel around the world but ‘there’s no place like home.’

LaB: We might be posting the Kenna James version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” from earlier today. (see below)

KJ: (laughs)

LaB: Well, it’s well past both our bed times and it has been a long, fun and poker filled day so we’ll just cut things off here and look forward to seeing the entertaining and altruistic “Cowboy” Kenna James on the felt and on the TV in the near future.

KJ: Thanks, it’s been fun.

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