The 10 Greatest Moments in Poker - Part I

10. The Life and Times of Benny Binion

I really struggled with where to start this list. After compiling all the information I could find, and poring over it for hours on end, I finally decided to just talk to a bunch of my poker friends about what they think. My thought process was, "well this is really an opinion article, and everyone has their thoughts on what should be on the list," so I set out to hear some of them.
I heard ideas like “Jamie Gold beating 8,772 other players to take home $12,000,000 in the 2006 World Series Main Event,” “$100,000 buy in tournament in Australia,” and “The beginning of rakeback.” It was clear that I had found myself in an even more precarious position than I was in the first place. While many of the ideas I heard certainly deserved their place on some list somewhere and some wouldn’t even be possible with out others, there just seemed to be too many to choose from, so I considered starting at #9.
Then, one night I was walking down Fremont on one of my infrequent trips to buy a Football Beer, and I stopped in at Binion’s to take a look at the “Great Wall of Poker” for the 100th time in my gambling career. While my senses and spirits were filled with the gambling lore of old, I realized that of all the great poker players and all the great poker tournaments, one man stands head and shoulder above the rest in the gambling world, Benny Binion.
While there isn’t enough room in this space to talk about all the things Benny did for the game of poker, we’ll kick this list off with a list of reasons Mr. Binion’s Life is number 10 on the list of the 10 Greatest Moments in Poker:

-Creator of Binion’s Horseshoe Casino (one of the most storied Casinos in Las Vegas)
-Gained a reputation as the Gambler’s Casino Host by catering to the wants and needs of the high limit player
-Set the standard for the highest betting limits in Las Vegas
-Founder of the World Series of Poker

Although many of Benny’s accomplishments dealt more with gambling in general than poker specifically, it’s safe to say that none of the following moments on the list would have been possible without him. And, even if they would have been possible, they most certainly wouldn’t have been as historic. So, enjoy the reading, and don’t forget that without Benny Binion, not even this list would have been possible.

9. Chip Reese Winning the Inaugural 50k buy in H.O.R.S.E. Event

With all the things Chip Reese accomplished in the game of poker; writing a section in Super System, gaining a reputation as the greatest cash game player in history, and winning three W.S.O.P. bracelets, just to name a few, none were as deserved and inspiring as his 1st place finish in the first ever 50k buy in H.O.R.S.E. event at the 2006 World Series of Poker.
Having been primarily a cash game player for many years, only making occasional appearances on the tournament circuit, Chip was as excited as anyone when the announcement was made to introduce a mixed games event at the World Series with the largest buy in the Series had seen yet. As a chronic member of the “$4,000-$8,000 Big Game” in the famous “Bobby’s Room,” he was considered a master of all forms of poker. With all the hours put into the side games, it required a pretty lucrative tournament to pull Reese away from his favorite form of poker at the cash tables. The 50k H.O.R.S.E. proved to be that tournament and after playing the longest heads up battle in World Series history, Chip’s AcQc held up against Andy Bloch’s 9c8s on a Jc7c7s4h4s board at the No Limit Hold ‘em final table.
With the $1,784,640 first prize in his hand and gold bracelet around his wrist, Reese won the newly coined “pro's tournament” and cemented his already solid place in poker history as one of the best, if not the, best player ever.
What made the tourney win ever more special was the decision to hand out the David “Chip” Reese Award trophy to winners of the 50k H.O.R.S.E. event starting in 2008, following his death in December of 2007. Now, even after his passing, Chip won’t only stay around in our memories, but there will be a little part of him at the World Series of Poker every year.

8. Scotty Nguyen Becoming the First Player to Win the World Series of Poker 10k Main Event and 50k buy in H.O.R.S.E. Event

Basketball has Wilt Chamberlin and his 100 point game. Football has Brett Favre and his 253 consecutive regular season starts (maybe more depending on how this season goes). And Baseball has Joe DiMaggio’s 56 consecutive game hit streak.
I’m not saying that Scotty Nguyen deserves to be held in such regard as three off the greatest athletes to ever play professional sports, but up until the 2008 World Series of Poker 50k buy in H.O.R.S.E. event, poker really had no ultra impressive records. Sure, Phil Hellmuth’s record of 11 bracelets is damn pretty good, but with two players (Johnny Chan and Doyle Brunson) nipping at his heels with 10, it’s a record that is definitely within reach. Jamie Gold’s record for the largest tournament ever won ($12,000,000 first prize in the 8,773 person field) is huge, but both of those numbers are largely out of anyone’s control.
When it all comes down to it, there is really only one poker accomplishment that will most likely stand for many, many years, and that belongs to the Scotty. Although a few players have won back to back Main Events, and similarly, other players have found themselves at multiple Main Event final tables, some of said players final tabled events with much smaller player pools.
With the 10k Main Event being the largest and most popular tournament in the world, in recent years many “name pros” have disregarded the credibility of its winner because of the high luck factor involved in a tournament win with so many players. With the creation of the 50k buy in H.O.R.S.E. event, a lot of the same pros have declared it to be the new “real championship.”
So, it was no small feat, in fact, it was an incredibly remarkable feat when Scotty won the 50k H.O.R.S.E. in 2008 to compliment his 1998 10k Main Event bracelet. With the high level of competition in the 50k H.O.R.S.E. and the massive entrant pool in the 10k Main Event, and having both bracelets on his shelf, Nguyen has accomplished, thus far, the greatest accomplishment in poker history.

7. Rounders

If a survey was handed out to a random sample of poker players, hobbyists or professional, winning or losing, fat or skinny, asking what inspired them to play poker, I would wager a large chunk of my bankroll on the over/under of the number of words written down. One. Rounders.
Produced in 1998, the film chronicled the life of high stakes poker player and law student Mike McDermott (played by Matt Damon). When his lifelong friend and card shark turned card sharp and cheater, Les “Worm” Murphy (played by Edward Nortorn) is released from jail Mike McD joins him in trying to settle a large gambling debt Worm has accrued before and during his incarceration. Not to spoil the movie (which I can’t imagine many Poker.vg readers haven’t seen yet) but in the end, Mike McD helps Worm get out of debt, plays the most memorable heads up NLHE match in poker history vs. Teddy KGB (an unforgettable Russian mob character played by John Malkovich) and eventually quits law school in hopes of World Series of Poker glory.
Despite coming out years after popular poker classic “The Cincinnati Kid,” and not enjoying the kind of box office success found by “poker movie” “Lucky You,” Rounders (which I refuse to put in quotation marks because it is much more deity than movie), more realistically recreated poker scenes and lingo than any poker movie to come out yet.
Even ten years after it’s release, any poker player will be hard pressed to play a session in any poker room or home game across the globe without hearing the phrases “chyeeeeck, chyeeeeck, chyeeeeeck,” “Allygateeer blood,” “don’t splash the pot,” “you know what, fuck you and your never ending string of boats,” and the cult classic, “In the poker game of life, women are the rake. They are the fucking rake!” This, in my book, puts it at number 7 on the list of great poker moments.

6. Launch of Online Poker

Technically, the first online poker play was born in the Internet Relay Chat rooms where players could type in commands to play against each other in games managed and dealt by a computer program. While the games all consisted of play money “chips,” many players accumulated millions of chips (while only being able to reload for 1,000 chips per day if they went virtually busto) and would joke about selling their accounts for real money.
In 1998, many of those player’s dreams came true with the launch of the first online poker site where participants could play for real money, Planet Poker. In 1999, Planet Poker’s random number generator (the system used to ensure a random dealing of hole card and flop, turn, and river distributions) was compromised resulting in an estimated $100,000 lost to hackers. Despite becoming one of the smallest sites on the internet today, Planet Poker set the standard for almost every site to follow with its 5% rake with a maximum of $3.00, a criteria still used by major sites.
Although online poker has gone through its ups and downs since its humble beginnings in Planet’s first nickel and dime games, the gambling industry today would no doubt be much smaller without it.