Played a WSOP $1500 NL event today (Event #37).
The most interesting player at the table was John Morgan, who is 77 years old and a real character.
He's chairman of the Winmark Corporation, and apparently has a shitload of money.
Most notably, he entered the $1 Million One Drop event in 2012, and got a pro to fold quad 8s with a possible straight flush out there. Morgan has not revealed if he really had the straight flush, and he claims that only 2 people in the world know whether he had it or not.
From playing with him today, I would say he probably had it. Morgan took the $1500 event seriously (even though the money is meaningless to him), and while he entered a lot of pots, he made a number of careful folds postflop.
Before I knew who he was, I played a hand with him where I flatted TT to his early position raise, and got two callers behind (one in the blind, one late position). He bet suspiciously small on a 226, two-heart flop, so I raised, and the other two guys folded. Morgan just called. 7 hit the turn, and I decided to check it, trying to keep the pot small and prevent any funny moves which would make me fold. River was 5. He fired a moderate sized bet, I thought about it shortly, decided I probably had him beat, and called. He showed AK, and I took the pot down.
He remarked that he wasn't able to bluff me, but he noticed that I thought about folding. I told him that I always consider folding against people older than me. He retorted, "What about 77 year old guys with 23-year-old girlfriends? Would you fold to them?"
I responded, "Probably not, because it means they're willing to throw around money."
Anyway, as you might have guessed, he was speaking of himself. He kept mentioning the 23-year-old girlfriend, and eventually showed pictures of her. She was a cute Asian girl. He got a massage fairly early on, and seemed to know the massage girl really well, referencing having her phone number, and telling her all kinds of personal stories (some of which I overheard).
He later told the table that he has a wife with whom he's separated, but "she won't divorce me". When a smart-looking young kid showed up at the table with a lot of chips, Morgan was needling him some, and at one point conceded, "You're probably smarter than me, and there's probably a few others at the table smarter than me, but I have more money than everyone here, and I'd rather be dumb and rich than smart and not rich."
I don't want to make the guy sound like a jerk, though. He was good-natured and personable, and made the table fun. He did like to show off regarding the young girlfriend and the fact that he was really rich, but he didn't do it in a condescending or obnoxious way.
He told the massage girl a LOL story about Jean-Robert Bellande that he took JRB to one of the Vegas Golden Knights NHL Finals games, and JRB was upset that they didn't have a special entrance away from the public. "I told him, these are great seats to the Finals, who gives a shit where we enter?"
He also told the massage girl about playing poker in some big private game with "Russell" (referring to Russell Westbrook), and said that he's a "nice guy" and "fun to play with".
He said that the one player he doesn't enjoy playing with is Rick Salomon, because apparently Salomon is super-aggro and makes the games play ridiculously big due to all the action. "A pot which is normally $100k is $600k or $700k when Salomon is in the game", he said.
He said that he's a great-grandfather and takes Viagra for sex with the young girlfriend.
He currently lives in a certain expensive condo complex associated with a strip hotel, but I won't say which one because I don't need you idiots stalking him.
He was almost busto in the event at one point, but he ran it back up somewhat, and then the table broke. He did not make Day 2.
He seemed friendly with a lot of players in the tournament, including a 20-something guy who got move to the table to his direct right (I was on his direct left).
Anyway, was an interesting and talkative table thanks to his presence, and I enjoyed it, even though I slumped badly in the hours before it broke, unable to win any hands, and my stack dwindled down to 9k. When it broke, I went to the new table and ran it up quickly to 44k. I return with 45k tomorrow.
Here's a full writeup of my Day 1 otherwise: https://pokerfraudalert.com/forum/sh...l=1#post777218