The Cowboy and the Queen

Back in the old days when the Horseshoe was in its prime, I was watching a big no-limit hold'em game in which the blinds were $50-$50-$100. Cowboy Wolford was playing and I was sitting behind him. As the dealer dealt the cards, she exposed a queen. The hand still went and the queen was used for the burn card. The pot was raised and there were five callers to Cowboy in the big blind. Looking down at A-Q, he threw his hand away because a queen was already gone. Now, what do you suppose came out on the flop? A-A-Q!

With Cowboy looking on, the other guys started firing at the pot. Jesse Alto was drunk and bluffing like hell, and was getting called by two players – Rusty LePage, who was drinking, and ol' Sam Moon, who was in there firing because he was stuck. This pot had $60,000 in it if it had a penny, and Jesse ended up winning it with sevens full of aces when he caught a 7 on the end! And all of the action would have been in front of Cowboy and coming into him.

I don't think Cowboy was ever the same after that one – he would have had $60,000 in his pocket. But once that queen gets burned, you're playing short-decked and can't play the A-Q. It was a case of making the right play and getting the wrong result. I didn't say a word; I just got out of my chair and left. I knew that the steam had to be coming out of Cowboy's ears, and everywhere else.

Jesse could've had 7-2 offsuit or something like that, for all I knew, instead of those pocket sevens. When he was drunk, his money was a giveaway. He'd play for two or three months and get ahold of a bankroll (he was never broke), and then he'd get drunk one night and that whole bankroll would go in one game – it was gone with the wind. Jesse's wife, Bertha, had money, and she would loan it to him on a percentage. Can you believe that? Jesse had to pay interest on the money that he borrowed from her just to get back in action.

Another time, I was at the World Series when Bobby Hoff was playing Betty Carey in a head-up match. This happened back when Dorfman, the multimillionaire from New York, was backing Betty. They were playing in the Sombrero Room at the Horseshoe, and they had at least $50,000 each on the table. On the first day that they played, I saw Betty make a couple of drawouts on Bobby, and vice versa. Bobby thought that he was going to get to play her again the next day, but Amarillo Slim cut in on him and played her that day, shutting Bobby out of the game. Bobby Hoff is one of the greatest head-up players in the world, and there has never been a female player who could touch Betty Carey. There are lots of very good female limit hold'em and seven-card stud players, but Betty was in a class by herself in no-limit hold'em. She took on all of the top players and played them head up. Like Barbara Enright, she had a lot of guts.

Betty also had the biggest win that anybody ever made at Bissell's game in Texas in the old days – she won $51,000 one night in a $5-$10-$25 no-limit hold'em game. She had all of the hands in the right spots, and the guys weren't giving her credit for being the player she was. She ate them alive. (I was happy to get out of there even.) Betty was the consummate gambler – she gambled high, high, high. One night she walked into the Stardust when Dody Roach and I were at the craps table, put her suitcase on the casino floor, and blew $60,000 before she'd even checked into the hotel.

Betty isn't playing poker these days – the word is that she's retired and living on a ranch in Wyoming – but Cowboy Wolford is still in there slugging. Year before last at the World Series of Poker, he took third place in the $2,000 pot-limit hold'em tournament, and this month he's coming out with his new book, Cowboys, Gamblers & Hustlers. Cowboy has more great stories from his old days of gambling on the road and the glory days of Downtown Vegas than you can shake a stick at. I used to gamble with him in the '80s at his joint in Dallas, where I played with some of the biggest characters in poker, not the least of whom was Cowboy himself.

Editor's note: T.J. Cloutier is the co-author of Championship No-Limit & Pot-Limit Hold'em, Championship Omaha, and Championship Hold'em, all of which can be ordered from Card Player. For more information, visit the web at www.pokerbooks.com.