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Before the advent of the World Poker Tour and its revolutionary hole-cams, the
only tournament in the world that really mattered was the "Big One": the World
Series of Poker $10,000 No-Limit Hold'em Main Event. Plenty of now-familiar
names have won the event over the years - Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan, Phil
Hellmuth, and Dan Harrington have all been enshrined in the Gallery of
Champions. Some of them even managed to win the Main Event more than once,
guaranteeing themselves a place in poker history. Still, there are few players
who cast as long a shadow over the most important tournament on earth as the
legendary Johnny Moss.
Known as the "Grand Old Man," Moss was a fixture at Binion's Horseshoe in the
early 1970s as the World Series of Poker began its run. In 1970, the first
year of the vent, the title of World Champion was awarded to Moss by the vote
of his peers. This isn't at all surprising in light of the fact that another
of Moss' nicknames was "The Pro's Pro." When the format of the Series changed
in 1971, Moss wasn't to be denied - he won the $10,000 freezeout and became
the first-ever two-time WSOP champion. In 1972 and 1973 he finished 2nd at the
Main Event to Amarillo Slim Preston and Walter "Puggy" Pearson, respectively,
but in 1974 he set the bar for all-time greatness when he captured his third
WSOP championship. Only one person since - the manic Stu Ungar - has managed
to win three Main Events, and nobody has made it to heads-up play in four
consecutive years. It boggles the mind to imagine how long his list of
accomplishments might have been had something like the WSOP existed when Moss
was in his prime.
Before he became associated with the WSOP, Moss was already known as one of
the great card players in the world. He began playing at the age of ten in his
hometown of Odessa, Texas, when he picked up the game from a group of local
cheats. They showed him the ins and outs of conning players at the table -
dealing from the bottom of the deck, marking cards, and the like. Moss used
his education in a most impressive way, learning to spot cheats at the tables
rather than cheating himself. As a teenager he turned his knowledge into a job
at a local saloon watching the games to make sure they were clean. This
position afforded him the opportunity to watch poker players all day for two
years straight, and it could be argued that this was part of what eventually
made him one of the greatest players of all-time.
Moss took his act on the road after learning the game, traveling wherever
there was a good game to be had. The times when Moss traveled around winning
more money than any other poker player in the world were a far cry from
today's licensed land-based casinos and online card rooms. He always traveled
armed, and on plenty of occasions had the need to use his weapon. Cigar
Aficionado's gambling columnist Michael Konik once asked Moss if he had ever
killed a man. Moss' reply was, "I don't know if he died." Try to imagine such
words coming from a Chris Moneymaker or Robert Varkonyi and you might be in
danger of laughing yourself to death; imagine them coming from Moss and you
don't doubt them for a second.
Probably the most famous story involving Moss is the tale of his heads-up
match against Nick "The Greek" Dandalos. Dandalos was a famous high-stakes
gambler who rolled into Las Vegas in 1949 after breaking all the best players
on the East Coast. Nobody else in town but Benny Binion would book any of the
Greek's high-rolling action, so when he wanted a $250,000 game of no-limit
poker Binion unsurprisingly obliged him. Binion called up his old friend Moss
and asked him to come play - Moss reportedly left the game he was playing at
the time and made his way to the table at the Horseshoe as soon as he arrived
in Las Vegas. Binion placed the game at the entrance to the Horseshoe, hoping
it would bring his casino lots of business. For five months the two dueled
away, before the Greek finally bowed out of the match with his now famous
words: "Mr. Moss, I must let you go." Moss reportedly took home over $4
million for his efforts, a sum so monumental for the day that it dwarfs even
today's richest tournament prizes.
The Grand Old Man passed away in 1997, the same year that Stu Ungar tied his
record of three Main Event victories. Though he'll never sit at a poker table
again, there isn't a player alive who doesn't owe a debt of gratitude to this
trailblazing Texas gambler.
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