In 1992 when I first got the gambling bug, I was railbirding the WSOPME. Chan was one of those I observed. I had read a lot about him. He was very impressive in his presence and demeanor. You could tell the other players feared him. He's still one of my favorites today. But he had a reputation for throwing temper tantrums in the cash games. I even seen him take a big McDonald's coke on the head one night at a later WSOPME.
I was the end of the first day. They were counting down the chips. When they counted Chan down he left the table, came up and walked directly in front of me. Some guy with this coke goes under the rail and dumps it on Chan's head. Chan started dancing like a chicken with his head cut off. He spun around and looked at the guy. The guy is standing there looking at Chan like 'What the hell you gonna do about it?" Chan yelled "Security."
Security showed and escorted the two of them off. I later asked a security guard about the incident. He said that the guy that did it was a poker dealer. Chan took a tough beat one night in a cash while this guy was dealing and delivered his drink to the dealer's face. The guy was just getting even.
I met a Chan lawyer one night in a poker game about 1993. He told me how Chan had gotten cheated out of over a million dollars in a Pai Gow game at Commerce. Chan sued. But the lawyer told me Chan dropped the lawsuit--that Chan was advised by some people that the people he was suing were not exactly upstanding citizens and Chan better back off.
It's actually T. J. Cloutier, who has won more no-limit holdem tournaments than anyone, who has the biggest reputation for not be able to hold money. Lyle Berman started staking him to the events. T.J. got a third of his cashes--except T.J.'s wife got the money and she gave T.J. an allowance. I've seen him in action too.
At the WSOP, a couple years before the poker boom, it was a $1500 no-limit holdem event that went down to just T.J. and Phil Hellmuth. I was in the cheap seats watching it. Hellmuth had a two to one chip lead. They got the money in before the flop with T.J. holding pocket fives and Hellmuth an AK. Hellmuth won the race and another bracelet.
A little while later I was walking by the pit downstairs and there was T.J. on the craps table rolling the bones and having a good ole time. And I came back through later just in time to see T.J. seven out for the last time. He stomped away from the table. You could tell he was not a happy camper. A little while later he showed up at the snack bar with a $6 comp. This was a guy who had just cashed for $97,000 a few hours earlier.
One day I was up on the rail during another event. T.J. was in the field A hustler friend of mine showed up beside me. He's say's "I'm gonna go see if T.J. has that twenty he owes me." He went under the rail and over to the table. I couldn't hear what was being said but I didn't see any money change hands. When he got back I asked him what T.J. said. "He said 'I got a dollar in my pocket'."
It got to be a joke that "You're nobody in the poker world if T.J. don't owe you twenty."
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--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, TedChee@... wrote:
When oblique references are made, it's fun to try to guess who it is. >Could be a lot of people but probably the most famous is Johnny Chan.
