Remembering John Bonetti

The world of poker dimmed and became considerably duller with the recent passing of John "Bono" Bonetti at the age of 80. As a player, his place in poker history is secure. He did not start playing until he was 55, and then won more than $4 million in some 200 tournament cashes over the next 20 years, capturing a bracelet in pot-limit Omaha and two more in deuce-to-seven lowball, and finishing third in two World Series of Poker main events.

But that doesn't begin to describe the saga of John Bonetti. I'm reminded of a line in the classic film The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, when Humphrey Bogart, prospecting for gold in Mexico, is accosted by a gang of banditos claiming to be Federales. Bogart demands to see the gang leader's badge, and the outlaw feigns outrage.

"I don't need no stinkin' bodge!" he yells.

Neither did John. At a time in poker when so many players strain to call attention to themselves with outlandish behavior, nicknames, and distinctive dress (I wonder how many players sporting cowboy hats would even know which side of a horse to mount?), John didn't need no stinkin' act. What you saw was uniquely, distinctly real and genuine. Like it or not, what you saw was what you got. John Bonetti was an inimitable, one-of-a-kind character, and we may never see his likes again.

Some people loved him, and others ... well ... didn't, because he was as well-known for his liberal use of "coise woids" and his battle with dealers as he was for his poker accomplishments. He probably holds the world's record for language penalties, and almost certainly was the only player ever to get an f-bomb penalty at the World Series of Poker during a break when he was away from his table.

On the other hand, people who knew Bonetti well said that he had a good heart and was always willing to help out players who needed a hand or a stake or some tutoring. His refinement may have been in question, but his honesty and integrity never were.

My first meeting with John was not too promising. In 1995, during the Four Queens Poker Classic, the casino issued a collection of $5 commemorative chips bearing likenesses of various top players. During the tournament, Bono was teasing his close friend Barbara Enright, who was named the Four Queens "Player of the Year," by offering to sell her chip at a discount. In retaliation, I went to Kinko's and printed up a batch of flyers listing his chip for sale for something like $1.95. He caught me handing them out, and was not too pleased, to say the least.

But over the years, we became good friends. He was a bountiful source of column material, and never minded when I wrote jokingly about his Brooklynese/Italian accent, his "coising" habit, or his war with dealers. Once, I wrote about dealers drawing straws to see who had the honor of assaulting him. Another time, he had staked Dirty Wally in a satellite, and was enraged when he saw how badly he played. So I had him haul Wally before Judge Judy, charging him with impersonating a poker player.

"You make me wet my pants," Bonetti would tell me after each column.

I once started writing a book with him. Unfortunately, it never got very far, but here's what he had to say about his early days:

I was born in Brooklyn in 1928 and grew up there. Both of my parents were of Italian descent. My father came from Naples, where he lived in the mountains, and came to this country in 1914 when he was about 12. I remember he was an immaculate dresser. He would walk to church every Sunday with my mother; gray hat, suit, shoes shined. My mother, who was more religious, would go into Mass, and he would pace back and forth until she came out. That was love. My father was a very, very honorable man. He had standards so high that I found them hard to live up to. He didn't believe in lying; he believed in honesty. That's where I get my sense of honor from, and why I hate cheats and people who take shots, and why I can't understand why people who play really well have to take shots, too. My mother was born in Brooklyn. I never heard her use a profane word. Never.

I was the oldest child, with a baby sister 16 years younger than me, to whom I was almost like a father. My life was kind of tough. We lived in a six-family tenement home on Central Avenue. They were called railroad flats. There were two families on each floor, and the two families shared one toilet. Sometimes I'd run home to go to the bathroom. Too late, somebody from next door, like my cousins, were in there. It was rough, but that's what we went through in those days. We had no money; we were broke. My father made $12 a week working as a tailor. We had a coal stove. Mitch the iceman delivered coal in the winter and ice in the summer. We had an icebox, and he'd bring a chunk of ice that cost maybe a nickel. It would last a few days. That's how we kept the food fresh in those days. There were no refrigerators; there was no steam heat. We kept the coal in a bin in the basement. I'd go down with a pail, bring it upstairs as we needed it, and my mother would put the coal in the stove to warm up the apartment.

After serving in the Air Force, Bonetti worked as a presser for several Manhattan couture houses, and then moved to Houston, where he was in property management and began playing poker in home games.

Two years ago, Bonetti, who had contracted cancer, was honored with a roast during the WSOP, when PokerStars presented him with a $10,000 seat in the main event. I was one of the speakers, and noted that his worst moment came when casinos began using automatic shuffling machines, because now he had nobody to blame but the manufacturer.

This was to be a farewell tribute, but John was tough and surprised everyone when his illness went into remission. Later that year, he was still playing strongly enough to make several final tables, including the points playoff at The Bicycle Casino's Big Poker Oktober. His sense of humor was still intact. When he was grumbling about his bad luck and a supporter tried to cheer him up by remarking that luck came in bunches, he cracked that the only thing that came in bunches for him were bananas. His antipathy toward dealers hadn't diminished, either. "If you was dealin' in Brooklyn," he informed one dealer who was cold-decking him, "you wouldn't live very long."

Many people believe that Bonetti committed the biggest bonehead play in poker history in the 1993 World Series of Poker main event. He and Jim Bechtel had more than a million in chips, while Glenn Cozen, with 60,000, was on the verge of elimination. Instead of waiting for the inevitable, Bonetti got involved in a pot with Bechtel, went all in after he flopped a king to his A-K, and busted out against Bechtel's flopped set of sixes, finishing third and giving up $300,000. But he defended his action, saying he always played to win, not finish second.

Bonetti's cancer eventually returned, and he finally succumbed after long at-home hospice care. A devoted family man, he is survived by his wife, Jeanie, three sons, a daughter, 10 grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.

Max Shapiro, a lifelong poker player and former newspaper reporter with several writing awards to his credit, has been writing a humor column for Card Player ever since it was launched 20 years ago. His early columns were collected in his book, Read 'em and Laugh.