The Big Game 1

Chip Reese was a stand up guy. There was a reason a thousand people went to his funeral. He always tipped the dealers a green chip ($25) for dealing a down in the big 4000/8000 game. I was dealing that game a couple of months before the WSOP was having the inaugural $50,000 HORSE event. Doyle Brunson, Chip, Phil, Eli Elizera & Barry Greenstein were talking about taking pieces of each other in the event. Doyle got upset about the terms of something and everyone decided not to take a piece of Chip in the even if Doyle wasn't in. The deal feel through. Two months later Chip won the event for like 1.6 Million. Oops.

Doyle Brunson

Here's a story about Doyle Brunson you've never heard. I worked with this old guy "Chuck" at the Stardust back in the day. The Stardust is legendary, where Lefty Rosenthal legalized sportsbetting and changed the gambling landscape forever. Robert Deniro played Lefty in "Casino" loosely based on the Stardust. Chuck was another Vegas legend that left his home in the South at twelve years old to make it on his own. He took third in WSOP limit hold'em event for like 140K back in the 80's. Look him up, he used to print sportspicks and run around with Lefty a little back when the Mob still ran the town. Chuck had been around Vegas for fifty years. Toughest five foot nothing guy you'd ever come across. He told me this:

The back-to-back years that Doyle Brunson won the WSOP, the same dealer was in the box. This dealer dealt Dolly the final winning hands in both tournaments. He was also one of the best card mechanics in Vegas history.

Background characters

People hate to go unnoticed and feel insignificant. I am constantly reminded of this element of human nature everyday at the tables. Here's a common scenario to illustrate: Bunch of players in a hand, first player checks and the third player checks prematurely skipping the second player. Second player makes big scene about getting skipped and wants to act on his hand. Thirty seconds go by, he postures, checks and then folds his hand. This player never was going to play the hand anyway, but wanted the respect of being the center of attention. If he was going to check anyways, why make a huge scene to slow the game down, just let the action unfold naturally. Instead this Joe stops time for thirty seconds before it can resume its natural progression. this needs to be amended.