"Well, I came to Vegas in 1974, and I really just came for a weekend."
It might not have been David "Chip" Reese's plan to spend more than 30 years in Las Vegas and to become one of the most respected poker players in history, but that's what happened.
Reese grew up in Centerville, Ohio, and poker was a part of his life from a young age. At Dartmouth College (he turned down admission to Harvard University), Reese was so dominant in cards that after leaving, his fraternity named a room in its house the "David E. Reese Memorial Card Room."
Once in Las Vegas, Reese stayed. He won more than $50,000 in his first month, and soon started playing in the original "Big Game" with Johnny Moss and Doyle Brunson. In his first session, Reese played for four days straight. He walked away a $300,000 winner, and a legend was born.
"That moved me to the next level," Reese said in a recent interview.
The legacy of the "best all-around gambler" continued to grow. After contributing a chapter to Brunson's seminal poker book
Super/System, Reese won bracelets at the 1978 and 1982
World Series of Poker in seven-card stud eight-or-better and seven-card stud, respectively. In 1991, at the age of 45, he became the youngest living player inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame.
Despite his fame and notoriety at the poker tables, Reese worked hard over the years to maintain a certain level of anonymity. A combination of privacy issues, starting a family, and the draw of cash games such as the Big Game, limited Reese's participation in major tournaments. In 2004, he broke a nine-year hiatus from the
WSOP when he played in the $2,000 no-limit hold'em event.
At the urging of his children, Reese made a more permanent return to the tournament circuit, but his main focus remained on the cash games. That was, of course, until word of the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event hit the Big Game. While Reese may not have been the fans' pick to win it all, other mixed-game specialists and Big Game regulars pegged Reese as a favorite to reach the final table.
Reese's victory at the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event, in conjunction with his dominant performance on day two and epic heads-up battle with Andy Bloch, sealed his status as one of the best poker players in the world, and engrained his name into the public consciousness of a whole new generation of poker fans.
Reese didn't plan on being a celebrity again, but he should know as well as anybody - plans were meant to be broken.
