In Memoriam

As you probably know from reading my sliver in Super System 2 and my Card Player columns, I advocate learning all of the variations of poker, and, if possible, a lot of other games. In the past few months, three of the greatest players of the greatest games have passed on: Chip Reese, Paul Soloway, and Bobby Fischer. In this column, I will briefly discuss my experiences with them and some lessons I learned along the way.

Chip Reese died at the age of 56 in December. He was probably the best cash-game player of the last 30 years, an incredibly long time to stay at the top. He was also an expert at several other games, including backgammon and gin. At other times, he was also successfully involved with groups who used modern technology and statistics to handicap and bet sports. In my mind, he possessed two qualities that made him truly outstanding as a gambler. He played very well all the time. He never fell apart and turned a losing day into a disastrous one. His other great strength was that he was enjoyable to play with. Weaker players loved to play with him because he made the game entertaining, and losing to him was almost pleasurable. He complimented his opponents' good plays, and praised the imaginative nature of their bad ones. There were times when I tried to teach him something, but he was always way ahead of me.

Years ago, I went on a poker cruise with Chip and a number of other top players. On board, he played some card game I'd never seen with Perry Green. One day when they started to play, I asked Chip if I could take a small percentage of him, and he graciously agreed. During the session, Perry played very slowly and thoughtfully. Chip played very rapidly, without any of the slow decisions that Perry seemed to agonize over. Perry was a small winner.

As I paid my share of the losses to Chip, I said, "You know that you might do a lot better if you took a little more time, like Perry does."

He replied, "He has to take a lot of time to try to figure out the right play. I already know the right play, so I can make it quickly."

For years before Bellagio opened, the big games were at the Mirage. I played in them when I thought they were good, and avoided them when they looked too tough. I came in one afternoon to see Chip, Doyle, and two other very strong players playing. Chip, who knew that I wouldn't play in that type of game, looked at me and said, "Seat open." I didn't take the seat, but watched him play for a few hours.

The game broke up and we went out to eat. I said, "Chip, I know you're a great player, but why do you waste your time playing in a tough game like that? If you wait around, there will be a lot of better opportunities."

He laughed and said, "Well, buddy, if you don't open the store, how can you get any customers?"

You should never get the idea that top players achieve success and stop working on their game. Chip stayed at the top for so many years by constantly trying to improve his skills. The high-stakes mixed games in Las Vegas initially consisted of a mix of hold'em and seven-card stud. At some point, they started to include Omaha and stud (both eight-or-better games). I had played a lot of these and similar games in New York, but they were still relatively new to the high-limit Vegas players. For the first month after they became popular, I was a huge winner, and thought I was the best player in the game. By the second month, I thought Chip and Doyle had caught up. By the third month, unfortunately, they were both better than I was, and I was back to waiting around for the good games with some real live ones. This didn't happen by accident. They studied these games. They did their math or had someone do it for them. They talked to expert players. That knowledge, added to their superb poker skills, kept them better than anyone else.

Paul Soloway died a few weeks before Chip, at the age of 66. He was the best tournament bridge player of the last 30 years, and amassed the most masterpoints (awarded for high tournament finishes) and won many U.S. championships and five world championships (one of which came a month after he underwent a quadruple bypass). Unlike Chip, he was a terrible gambler. He consistently lost at sports betting.

Once, after a tournament in Las Vegas, he went to the Stratosphere to play "crapless craps." The next day, I asked him, "Why?" He explained that the odds were better (they weren't), but he never really addressed the question of why he should be playing craps at all.

Legend has it that as a child of 3 or 4, his family was visiting George Raft, the gangster-actor. Young Paul fell into the pool and was saved by Bugsy Siegel, who happened to be visiting Raft that day.

Even if Paul possessed none of Chip's gambling ability, he had a deeply ingrained work ethic. I returned to bridge after a long absence. The game had changed, and bidding methods were much more sophisticated. I hired Paul as a partner and coach. He never tired of going over systems, reviewing hands, and discussing alternatives. By the end of a few years of play and discussion, I had a hundred pages of system notes and had learned a great deal. One of Paul's strengths as a player was his incredible focus. In bridge, like poker, you get a lot more mediocre and bad hands than good ones. It is very easy to lose focus with them. In both games, a bad hand may have an opportunity to make a great play. And even when no opportunity for a spectacular bluff exists, it is important to maintain your concentration. Any hand may be the one that gives you a valuable clue about one of your opponents. In fact, one of the reasons that I gave up bridge again is that it requires a lot of hard work, both at the table and away from it, and I was just too lazy to do what had to be done to keep improving. Paul truly loved bridge, and even though his health was bad, he played right up until the end. He won his last national championship as his organs were failing, and he underwent dialysis on the breaks.

The third great to die was Bobby Fischer, who was 64. After World War II, the Cold War developed between the United States and the USSR. The two powers were extremely competitive. When the Russian space program launched the first satellite, the U.S. was devastated. Suddenly, math and science were a huge priority here. We couldn't let those Commies beat us. There was one area in which they were clearly superior, the game of chess. I would guess that by the early '60s, there was not one American chess player in the top 100. Then, along came Bobby Fischer, a somewhat geeky, maladjusted young man who was obsessive about chess. He was willing to work on chess round-the-clock. Every game was an all-out fight to the death. He overcame his own inner demons and the behind-the-scenes maneuvering of the Russian chess establishment to qualify for a world championship match against the Russian Boris Spassky.

Chess is not a very exciting game to watch. A game often lasts five or six hours, with long periods of thought, and many games end in a draw. Somehow, the championship match electrified America. It was televised with expert commentary, and, amazingly, everyone was fascinated. Chess had become the ultimate Cold War battlefield. If we could beat the Russians at their own game, we could beat them at anything. Fischer's win was a triumph for capitalism and America. (If you are interested in learning more about this contest, I recommend Bobby Fischer Goes to War by David Edmonds.)

Unfortunately, Fischer refused to defend his title when the international chess federation wouldn't agree to all of his terms. He then fell apart, becoming a paranoid, anti-Semitic psychotic. There are some who say that chess drove him crazy. I am one of those who believe that chess kept him sane (or at least somewhat sane), and it was only when he quit the game that he became completely unbalanced.

There is much to be learned from his triumph and his decline. First, if you have talent and are willing to devote yourself completely to a game, you can become great, and may be even the best. Second, and more important, no matter how good at a game you become, that one area of expertise won't in and of itself bring you satisfaction. Both Chip and Paul had family lives as well as gaming lives. Lastly, if you have something you love, even if it is only a game, keep playing. Ozzie Jacoby, a famous games player from the 1930s to the 1980s, played with us in a weekly poker game in New York City. When we showed up one night, the host informed us that Ozzie wasn't playing. He had had a heart attack and was in the hospital. Half an hour later, to everyone's astonishment, Ozzie showed up to play. When asked about his condition, he replied, "If I have to die, I want it to happen while I'm doing something I enjoy, not lying in some dismal hospital room." I couldn't agree more.

Steve "Zee" Zolotow, aka The Bald Eagle, is a successful games player. He currently devotes most of his time to poker. He can be found at many major tournaments and playing on Full Tilt, as one of its pros. When escaping from poker, he hangs out in his bars on Avenue A - Nice Guy Eddie's on Houston and Doc Holliday's on 9th Street - in New York City.