Feldman Foundation Holding Poker Tournament to Raise Funds for Pulmonary Fibrosis Research
The Feldman Family Foundation will hold its 5th Annual Texas Hold ’Em poker tournament to raise funds for pulmonary fibrosis research on Saturday, March 10, in the Chicago area.
Foundation officials said the event will be in the grand ballroom of the Chevy Chase Country Club in Wheeling, Illinois.
It will feature a buffet dinner, open bar, charitable casino gaming, and the charitable poker tournament, which will include more than $30,000 in prizes, according to a press release.
Irv Feldman’s sons Mitch and Laury started the foundation in partnership with Mara Fox. They inaugurated the Texas Hold ‘Em and Casino Night in 2013 in memory of Irv Feldman, who was diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis in 2005. Feldman battled the disease for eight years before finally succumbing to it.
The Feldmans chose a poker event to raise funds and awareness for pulmonary fibrosis because the game was a family hobby.
“Dad was a poker player,” Mitch and Laury Feldman said in a statement. “He loved the competition and he loved to bring our family together for a ‘friendly’ game of Texas Hold ‘Em poker. We played for hours at a time, meeting his fierce competitive nature the best we could.
“Throughout Dad’s last years and months, and right up to his last few weeks of life, we played poker with him whenever he was physically able,” his sons said in the statement. “We played at his kitchen table when he couldn’t leave the house, and we even brought cards and chips to his hospital and rehab rooms!”
They added that “during these few hours of poker play, Dad curiously and miraculously forgot about his illness and showed virtually no symptoms of the disease. He perked up and literally came alive while he check-raised, bluffed, and masterfully picked his ‘all-in’s’ and collected our chips. Dad fiercely competed while playing poker as he fiercely competed for life.”
The sponsor of the annual benefit tournament is the CHEST Foundation, the charitable arm of the American College of Chest Physicians. It helps support PF patient education, awareness and research.
Northwestern Memorial Foundation and the Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation are other partners in the event.
Player tickets are $135. You can attend without playing for $75. Tickets can be purchased here or through Angela Perillo at [email protected].
Sponsorship opportunities are also available.
The tournament’s grand prize is a $10,000 seat at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.
To learn more about the tournament’s structure, rules and etiquette, please visit this page.
About the Author
