Chip Reese dead

BleedDodgerBlue

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For those who follow poker or may have watched on tv, the guy who many consider the best all around player and biggest winner ever in cash games has died. He didn't play many tournaments, but he did win the first HORSE 50k buy in tournament last year. Can't say I ever knew him, but word is he was a stand up guy.

time World Series of Poker bracelet winner, longtime cash-game star, and member of the Poker Hall of Fame, has died. He was 56.
Card Player has learned that Reese was admitted to a hospital last night with symptoms of pneumonia and passed away in his sleep.

Reese, the Ohio native who learned to play poker while attending Dartmouth, was a regular in the biggest cash games and was considered the best seven-card stud player in the world. Doyle Brunson held Reese?s play in such high regard that he pegged him to pen the chapter on stud for his book ?Super System.?

He affirmed his position as one of the world?s best all-around players in 2006 when he won the $50,000 WSOP H.O.R.S.E. event ($1.8 million). He also won bracelets in 1982 and 1978 ($5,000 limit stud and $1,000 stud split).




RIP
 

MadJack

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wow, what a shocker that is. RIP.
 

WhatsHisNuts

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Wow. I know poker pros aren't the healthiest guys on the planet, but this is one of the guys that seemed like he had his stuff together. Sad.
 

MadJack

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Quick Bio off of Pokernews...



David Edward Reese, born March 28, 1951, is not the epitome of a professional poker player, because that description is too broad, way too broad. He is the quintessential Hall of Fame poker player - the essence of a successful poker player in the purest and most concentrated form, a demigod.

Chip grew up in Dayton, Ohio, where he enjoyed playing poker for baseball cards. When his mother learned he was playing with the fifth-graders down the street she assumed he would learn a good lesson since he was only six years old. He did. He learned how to win, and before his older adversaries knew hat had happened, he had every baseball card on the block.

During his first year of elementary school Chip contacted rheumatic fever and was forced to stay home for most of the year. His mother stayed home with him and taught him all types of board and card games, and Chip now says, "I'm really a product of that year."

He continued playing poker in high school, but also found time to play football. Reese also excelled on the debate team where he won an Ohio State Championship and went to the National Finals. His parents assumed he would attend Harvard (where he was accepted), but instead got his degree from Dartmouth. He didn't become the legend at football that he may have hoped to become, but his old fraternity did dedicate their game room in his honor.

After graduation, Chip had plans to attend Stanford School of Law, but got sidetracked in Las Vegas. Arriving in town with $400, he visited a friend, then lost his cash playing blackjack. In the morning that same friend got him a job selling raw land with his father's company. It was enough to keep him in pocket money and Reese started playing some $5/$10 7-card stud, his favorite game.

Near the end of the summer Chip took $500 and entered a tournament at the Sahara Casino. Since taking first-place and pocketing $40,000 Chip has never looked back. By the time he should have been at Stanford, Chip had a bankroll of over $100,000 and by the end of the year, he had a playing partner, Danny Robeson.

Late one night, while playing $10/$20 stud, Chip saw some of the big-name players like Doyle Brunson and Johnny Moss playing hi-low split. "I was playing in my game but I was watching them and they were playing terribly." He called Danny and convinced him that the game was worth risking $15,000 of their bankroll, even though that would be a tiny buy-in for the $400/$800 stakes. Danny agreed, and Chip got in the game as a total nobody.

His unknown status helped him drain the game of any loose chips, and by the end of a long four-day weekend their bankroll stood at a healthy $400,000. His score allowed him to start playing some hold'em, and like most young players (he was 23) Chip was happy to jump into games like ace-seven and razz even though he had never played them. He wasn't to happy when he found himself broke several times, but his amazing ability to play even the best in the world at almost any game allowed him to quickly build his bankroll again.

Because there were still a problem with cheating in Las Vegas in the 1970's, Chip felt his best move was to run a poker room himself. He went to Morris Shenker at the Dunes Casino when he was 28, introduced himself, and came away with the poker room manager's job. Before long the Dunes was the place to play high-stakes poker, and players worried less about being cheated. And, it would be five years before Chip tired of running the room.

In 1978, Chip won his first World Series of Poker gold bracelet, taking the $1,000 Seven-Card Stud Split Championship, and he won the $5,000 Seven-Card Stud Championship in 1982. Although the wins were fun, the tournaments were not nearly as lucrative as the side-games. Noted author and mathematician David Sklansky rated Reese as the best 7-card stud player in the world at the time, and nothing has changed since.

High-stakes player Barry Greenstein rates Chip as one of the best ever at side games, and notes that "his skill and control make him the prototype successful big-time player." They have played together for years now, but Barry still remembers when Chip used to try and convince him to play in their game by saying, "Buddy, we've got the perfect game for you. We're playing all of your best games. I can't believe you're not gonna take a shot."

Chip stayed single until he was 35, enjoying the fruits of his labor, and taking on all-comers in almost any game. He also began using computer programs to handicap sporting events, and has made millions with his system for betting baseball. Now that he is married, the sports betting has been a dominant income producer because he would rather spend time at home with his family or go see his kid's soccer games than be away all the time in a casino.

As far as playing styles go, Chip says that every player develops their own comfort zone, but the players that make the most money are the ones who are willing to gamble. He recalls being in poker rooms with Doyle or other top players and just sitting at a table and starting a game heads-up. There was no real edge for either player, but eventually other players would join the game, and some of them would be the kind you needed at the table to make some money.

Reese scoffs at the pros who won't sit at a game unless it is just right, with the perfect number of players. "Those guys have cost themselves a fortune over the course of their careers," he states, and much like Doyle Brunson always said, "you have to give action, to get action."

In the tiny world of ultra-high stakes poker, Chip Reese is a living legend who has earned his place in the Poker Hall of Fame (he was elected in 1991 at the age of 40). As the nineteenth inductee, he was only the third living player to be enshrined, and the youngest.

Now, at the age of 54, Chip can be found on occasion playing $4,000/$8,000 limit games at the Bellagio Casino in Las Vegas. If you do see him, you might want to keep in mind that Reese still declares, "there is nobody I won't play if the conditions are right." Wanna gamble?
 

dawgball

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RIP
 

ripken8

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now that I see his pic I do remember seeing him on tv in a few tournies. that's too bad...
 

THE KOD

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scott...

i think that i read that he died from pneumonia..
..........................................................


its very unusual to die from pnuemonia.

There are usually other things going on with the persons health and pneumonia is the last thing that occurs.

:shrug:

RIP
 

justin22g

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really nice guy... he will be missed in the poker world... and everyone else. He is one of my favorite players... gentleman on and off the felt.

RIP Chip
 

SixFive

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pneumonia?

Wonder if he had been sick and not letting everybody know about it.

Always seemed like a classy guy. bad news.
 

vinnie

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Hope chip got a piece of this player before his untimely death R.I.P
joanna-krupa-big.jpg
 
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countinguy

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Reese died in his sleep and was found by his son early Tuesday morning at his Las Vegas home after suffering from symptoms of pneumonia, said poker great Doyle Brunson, his longtime friend.

"I knew him for 35 years, I never saw him get mad or raise his voice," Brunson said. "He had the most even disposition of anyone I've ever met. He's certainly the best poker player that ever lived."

After attending Dartmouth College, Reese was on his way to Stanford business school in the early 1970s when he stopped by a Las Vegas poker room and won big, said World Series of Poker media director Nolan Dalla.

"He just accidentally stumbled into Las Vegas and never left," Dalla said.

His immediate success at cash games and low-key persona won him friends, even among those who wound up passing him their chips.

Despite winning three World Series champion's bracelets over the last four decades, including a $1.8 million HORSE event in 2005 that combines five poker disciplines, Reese focused his attention on high-stakes cash games away from the limelight.

"I've seen him with a million dollars in front of him," said Dalla, describing how Reese would put out racks of $5,000 chips "like he was betting a few bucks."

Reese was part of a generation of players in the 1970s that challenged established greats like Brunson, Thomas "Amarillo Slim" Preston Jr. and Walter Clyde "Puggy" Pearson, Dalla said.

Brunson and Reese eventually became business partners, investing in everything from oil wells and mining to TV stations and racehorses and becoming sports betting consultants.

None of the ventures was successful, Brunson said.

"We went to look for the Titanic. We went to look for Noah's Ark. We were two of the biggest suckers whenever it came to business, but we both had poker to fall back on," Brunson said. "Thank God we could play, so we always survived."

Reese's prowess at both cash and tournament play was cemented with his 2005 win, said World Series of Poker commissioner Jeffrey Pollack.

"Many consider Chip the greatest cash-game player who ever lived," Pollack said in a news release. "His victory in the inaugural $50,000 buy-in HORSE championship ... made him a part of WSOP lore forever."

Reese is survived by a son, a daughter and a stepdaughter, Brunson said. He was recently divorced from his wife.

Services are planned for Friday in Las Vegas, Brunson said
 
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