Sad news from the world of poker:
Poker Player Reese Dies at 56By RYAN NAKASHIMA – 12 hours ago
LAS VEGAS (AP) — David "Chip" Reese, a card star who won one of the biggest cash games in the world and three World Series of Poker championships, has died. He was 56.
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.
I recall a story about Reese involving Orel Hershiser, the hall of fame baseball pitcher. Hershiser wanted to improve his poker game, and Reese's son was a high school baseball pitcher who wanted to improve his skills. So Reese made Hershiser a deal, offering poker lessons in exchange for pitching lessons for his son.
In 2006, Reese won the first ever $50,000 HORSE tournament. I watched about six hours or so of the heads-up battle between him and Andy Bloch, for whom I was rooting because he is a friend of a friend.
One of the things that struck me was that Reese's family was there, at the event, rooting him on, including his teenage son. You don't often see children of poker players rooting their parents on (actually, you never do), and that says something about the kind of person that Reese must have been.
© Jed Lewison