Moss Misses a Draw but the Video Hits the Bull's-eye at the 1973 World Series of Poker By Dana Smith

The first year that the World Series of Poker championship event was videotaped was 1973 when Walter Clyde "Puggy" Pearson fought Johnny Moss in a heads-up duel at the championship table. Of the 13 players who had plunked down $10,000 each to play the event, the reigning champion Thomas "Amarillo Slim" Preston had been eliminated, as had legendary road gamblers Bob Hooks, Sailor Roberts, and Jack Straus. In the final hand, Pearson held the A7and Moss had the K J´. When the flop came Q102, Moss pushed in his last $40,000 with an open-end straight draw. Pearson called the bet with the nut-flush draw and an overcard. The turn was the 5, followed by the 6 on the river, giving Pearson the pot and the championship with his ace-high hand. It was a winner-take-all tournament, so the 45-year-old Pearson won the entire $130,000 prize pool.

Today's slick videotapes of the championship table at the WSOP are always fast-paced, entertaining, and educational, but in the opinion of many World Series aficionados, the less sophisticated, almost homespun 1973 tape was the most entertaining WSOP video ever filmed. Narrated by oddsmaker Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder, the vintage video shows Pearson at his best, kibitzing and chomping on his signature cigar. "I learnt to play with gamblers!" he exclaimed at the end of the 19-hour marathon, which was chronicled in Jon Bradshaw's 1975 book, Fast Company (a collectors item that is out of print).

Bradshaw wasn't the only professional writer who covered the '73 Series. Reporter Al Reinert described Pearson for his Texas Monthly readers: "Pug looks like he's between acts as a circus clown, but he's one of the best three all-around card players alive." Reinert also wrote a vivid portrayal of Moss: "Johnny Moss' face is transparently blank, the practiced result of 50 years of self-induced rigor mortis." Moss had lost "an easy quarter million" in the month prior to the WSOP in the big-bet games at the fabled Aladdin poker room, Reinert estimated. The reporter also mentioned that Preston, who was knocked out next-to-last, was hawking his new book, Maverick Poker, stating its price as "six nine-five or fifty dollars fer an autograph't one."

During the early Series, players were allowed to buy insurance on their hands, which were side bets based on the probability of one hand winning over another. In a hand he was playing against Straus, Moss wanted 2-to-1 insurance but Jack Binion offered him only 3-to-2. Moss passed on the wager, but won the hand anyway and knocked Straus out in third place. Snyder had picked Straus as the favorite to win the tournament at odds of 9-to-2.

In addition to the championship tournament, four preliminary events were played. Pearson won two of them, seven-card stud and no-limit hold'em. Aubrey Day and Jack Straus were declared co-winners of the deuce-to-seven draw event, and Sam Angel (who is still a fixture at the Series selling jewelry) won at seven-card razz. In only the WSOP's fourth year of play, 7,000 articles about it were published in newspapers and magazines in 1973, due in large part to the extensive television and media coverage that Amarillo Slim had generated after his victory in 1972. The poker world would have to wait five years, however, for the next WSOP championship table videotape.

This account of the action at the '73 WSOP is taken from The Championship Table (at the World Series of Poker, 1970-2002), the book that Tom McEvoy, Ralph Wheeler, and I have just finished writing. In the book, we picture the hands that the final two players held, along with the boardcards, the betting action, and the result. In some cases, the champion himself wrote the "how it happened" part, as did 1976-77 World Champion Doyle Brunson for the 1980 championship table when Stu Ungar made a wheel on the turn to deprive "Texas Dolly" of his third WSOP title. The book is not a detailed history of the Series; rather, it is a tribute to the poker players who have made the WSOP the world's premier gaming event. We include interesting highlights from each Series (similar to this extract from the '73 event), lots of vintage photographs, quotations from many of the players, and a few of the 100-plus interviews I have written about the champs.

Of all the books I have published, written, or edited, I enjoyed working on this one the most. Maybe it's because, as McEvoy says in the foreword, "I have had a love affair with the World Series of Poker ever since I stumbled into Binion's Horseshoe in Las Vegas at the tail end of the 1978 championship event." For me, the year was 1993 when Jim Bechtel trapped John Bonetti in a key hand that elevated Glen Cozen to second place - but that's another story, which, of course, you'll find in The Championship Table.

Author's note: The Championship Table and McEvoy's other new book, Championship Tournament Practice Hands, are available through Card Player. For more information, visit www.pokerbooks.com.