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When I was playing poker in the early '80s, I met a lot of poker players. One of them who made a big impression on me was Seymour Liebowitz. The first time I ever met him was at the World Series of Poker, and then a month later, he moved from Florida to Las Vegas and we ended up playing almost every day. We spent more time with each other than with our families. We played a lot at the Stardust, mostly pot-limit, but sometimes we played limit poker, too. Seymour was one of the first players I met in Las Vegas, and he taught me a lot, not just about poker but about life in general. He had a lot of good qualities. He was a gentleman at all times and was also very generous. He helped a lot of people, including players like Jimmy Doman and many others. Of course, Seymour has passed away, but he was a very good man and I had a lot of respect for him. He was well-liked by many players in the poker community. When Seymour retired from his garment business, all he wanted to do was to be a good poker player. That's why he moved to Las Vegas and enjoyed playing poker for the remaining years of his life.

I saw Seymour treat people fairly and help them, and that made a big impression on me. I saw a lot of qualities in him that I wanted to emulate in poker, business, and life in general. I remember many times when Seymour put Jimmy Doman in a tournament or side games. Jimmy was a good person, and at times a great poker player, but he had some personal problems. Many people didn't want to deal with Jimmy because of this, but Seymour almost always said yes to him. Jimmy sometimes won and sometimes lost, but most of the time he made money for Seymour. The reason Seymour liked to help people was that he had a big heart. In Jimmy's case, he frequently struggled with managing his money, and he had a family to support. I saw Seymour treat Jimmy like a godson. When Jimmy got himself into trouble, or went broke, Seymour was always there to help him out. Now, Jimmy's problems eventually did him in, which is a lesson in itself, but Seymour never turned him down. As a matter of fact, Seymour rarely turned anyone down. If he could do something for a person, he'd do it with open arms.

I became such good friends with Seymour that every once in a while when he and I ended up in a pot alone together with one or two cards to come, we'd turn our hands up and figure out the insurance price. Sometimes he'd have the best of it and sometimes I'd have the best of it, but we never tried to hurt each other. We'd try to figure out a fair price for one another. Now, of course, we didn't do this all the time, because we didn't want anyone to think that we were putting the money in there with the intention of splitting the pot, but we were friends, and I'd seen him help so many people that I just didn't want to beat him. Here's an example: One time Seymour had two queens and I had A-K, and we put all the money in there, about $20,000 apiece. We turned our hands up and he said, "Johnny, would you like to split the pot?" I said, "Seymour, you're a small favorite; maybe you can take a little bit out of the pot and we'll split it." He said, "No, no, no, no, no, just split it." That's how Seymour was.

Now, I'll tell you how Seymour interacted with some other players. Perhaps you have heard of Pat Callihan. We used to play pot-limit every day at the Stardust, and Pat usually played. We were just like family. Everybody had a good time. I remember one hand in which Seymour and Pat went all in; there was maybe $10,000 in the pot. Pat said, "Seymour, what'd ya have?" Seymour turned his hand up and said, "I flopped three threes." Pat put two fingers to his eyes, indicating he had two aces, and said, "Well, you got me." Seymour always said something nice so that even when you lost a big pot to him, it was hard to be mad. And when you had the best of it and won a big pot from him, he was always a gentleman. He would just light up his cigar and act like a gentleman, as pleasant as could be. He always cracked jokes and made sure that everyone felt comfortable. Seymour was also the captain of the ship, making the right rules and the right decisions, being fair to everybody. Here's an example of that. Let's say that two strangers came to play and got involved in a big pot, and one of them said, "I don't know what the price is." Seymour would ask, "May I say something? May I tell you what the price is?" He always knew what the price was. He'd say, "This guy is 6-to-5," or "This guy is a 2-to-1 favorite," and then it was up to the player to take 2-to-1 or gamble for everything. So, Seymour always ran the game and we never, ever objected to what he said. He was always right on the money and fair to everyone.

At the Stardust, we had new players all the time. I mean, strangers came in who had never played pot-limit in their lives, and, of course, they didn't know what insurance was. Seymour took his time, was patient, and explained what insurance was and what the correct prices were. Seymour's personality and the fact that he was fair to everybody were a big part of what made that game so successful for a long, long time. img SRC="../images/diamond.gif" ALT="diamonds" height=11 width=13

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