Meet Poker's 'Grand Old Man'

A native of Marshall, Texas Johnny Moss was born on May 14, 1907. Moss was raised and spent his childhood in Dallas, Texas. As a young boy he gained knowledge of gamble through a group of tricksters who trained him to be good in manipulating games; though he put all the knowledge he gains in good use.

Johnny Moss was employed by a bar to oversee games and making sure that the games were as fair as possible; this happens when he was about a young man. But he put all that he learned about cheating games into good use. During his stay at the bar looking after games, he was also studying some of poker's strategy usually done by the players then. After a couple of years Johnny became a hustler or a rounder (a player who hops from place to place just to participate in poker actions.

In 1949, he played against Nick the Greek (a well known poker player at that time) a marathon five months poker game s put up by Binion, earning more or less $4 million. Towards the end of the epic match, Nick running short of funds spoke what would become a most popular poker speech marks ever: "Mr. Ross, I have to let you go".

Benny Binion,Johnny Moss and Nick the "Greek" were among the famous poker players who where instrumental in planning and organizing the World Series of Poker. Moss won the inaugural event in 1970 and followed it up with wins in 1971and 1974 WSOP.

For capturing the 1970 edition of WSOP, he was voted as the champion by his contemporaries but Moss was only awarded with a silver cup as his reward. Moss has been a part of World Series of Poker all throughout his career beginning in 1970 and ending it up with the1995 event.

He received 9 bracelets ranking him 4th on the all time players with the most numbers of gold bracelets behind J. Chan, Doyle Bronson and following Phil Hellmuth. He ended up his career with more than $600,000 in tour play.

Here is Johnny Moss career record:

Year Prize 1970 World Series of Poker Championship na 1971 $5,000 No Limit Hold'em Championship $30,000 1974 $10,000 No Limit Hold'em Championship $160,000 1975 $1,000 Seven Card Stud $44,000 1976 $500 Seven Card Stud $13,000 1979 $5,000 Seven Card Stud $48,000 1981 $1,000 Seven Stud card Hi-lo $33,500 1988 $1,500 Ace to five Draw $116,400