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WHEN BLUFF CALLED TJ CLOUTIER, HE WAS
ENGAGED IN A PARTICULARLY THORNY INTERNET TOURNAMENT
DURING THE RECENT WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS OF ONLINE POKER.
HALFWAY THROUGH THE INTERVIEW HE MANAGED TO HIT THE
‘CALL’ BUTTON INSTEAD OF ‘FOLD’,
AND
WITH A CRY OF, “AW SHOOT!” BLEW OFF ALL
HIS CHIPS. IT’S REASSURING TO KNOW THAT EVEN THE
WINNINGEST PLAYER OF THEM ALL MAKES THE SAME MISTAKES
WE DO.
 How
old were you when you played your first game of poker,
TJ?
I was caddying on a golf course when I was sixteen years
old, and when we were done we’d play Tonk with
the golfers and they would take all the money we’d
worked for. One day a guy came in and he passed around
what they called ‘Lucky Bucks’ from a card
club in Temparilo, CA. If you went in and spent $20
with one of these things, you’d get $40 worth
of chips. Anyway, I was only seventeen and I wasn’t
supposed to be in there, but I was a big kid, so I went
down there and played. I wasn’t very good in those
days, but that’s where it all started.
You were a pro football
player weren’t you?
I went up to Canada and played in the pro league for
five years, until my knees were gone – then I
was gone too.
So you channelled that
competitive instinct into poker?
Yeah. I’ve had that all my life. Heck, I was a
big sportsman all my life. When I was a kid I played
in the rookie league for Pittsburgh with Willie Stargell.
I batted clean-up, which is supposed to be the power
position, and he batted fifth. So I was the big home
run hitter on that team and he hit something like 500
home runs in the Major Leagues. They wanted me to play
pro baseball for a living, but they didn’t think
my knees would hold up. I ended up playing college football
in the Rose Bowl in ’59. And then went to the
Canadian leagues and played as long as my knees held
out.
You’re one of the
few remaining old Texas road gamblers. Playing poker
was a harsh and unforgiving life back then. Did you
get into any scrapes?
Well, nothing real bad… Of course, we were robbed
a couple of times, but that went with the territory.
But you just had to give it up when you were held up
– let it go and go get a new bankroll. But what
was worse than that was that you had to learn to keep
the cheat off you; you’d learn to keep the cheat
off you first and then you learn how to play. You’d
have to go and find someone who was pretty good at cheating
himself and find out what mechanics do and what to look
for, so that you could make sure you didn’t get
in no situations. I once went to a game outside of Baton
Rouge, LA, at this joint that closed up at 2am and then
became a card club. I remember going up to this big
door, and I asked the bouncer, “If I happen to
win, can I get out of here with the money?” He
said, “You know, no one’s ever asked me
that question before, but if you want to keep your money
I’d suggest you do not play.” So I just
turned around and left. (Laughs) There were lots of
things going on in the old days.
You must have met some
colorful characters back then…
There was George McGann. Now, George used to carry two
pistols. He had two shoulder holsters and he’d
carry them under his suit. George was a stone-cold contract
killer, but he loved to gamble. He was around the north
Texas area quite a bit. I remember he was playing this
guy – they called him Tippy-toe Joe Shotsman.
Tippy-toe Joe was a heavy, heavy drinker, but he was
a damn good poker player. Anyway, he beat George out
of all his money quite a few times, and finally George
got tired of it. They were heads up and George just
pulled his guns out and said, “Now Joe, give me
all the money you’ve beaten me out of today and
give me all the money in your pocket.” Tippy-toe
Joe had $10,000 in traveller’s checks in his pocket
and George made him sign every single one of them. While
he was signing away, Joe looked up and said, “George,
this is going to leave me a little short. Do you think
you can loan me about $3,000? Well, he didn’t
get it, but when they were done, they walked down the
stairs together and – because he’d beaten
George so many times – Joe said, “We’re
not going to let this little incident ruin our game
are we?”
Everyone seems to have
a favorite Jack Strauss story. He must have been quite
a character…
Yeah, he was something else. He used to like me because
he used to say I was just like him: we’d have
a lot of money one day, we’d be broke the next,
but we’d always be in action. We went golfing
one day and he was betting real high with this other
guy, and he was just betting $100 here and there with
me. I was shooting the best game of my life, so after
four or five holes I called our bet off so that Jack
could concentrate on the other guy, who he was betting
$10,000 a hole with. It’s funny that I played
the best game of my life and I never made a cent out
of it.
The game must have changed
a lot over the years…
The game hasn’t changed any; the player’s
have changed.
So the style of play hasn’t
changed?
Not really. There’s only so many different ways
you can play: aggressive, loose-aggressive, tight…
You’re not seeing anything new – you’re
just seeing more of it.
What do think of these
young whippersnappers these days (be honest)?
I think there are some very good players. But I don’t
see any of the old guys who’ve been around a long
time ready to throw in the towel yet (laughs).
They call you poker’s
all-time winningest player. Which was the most important
win to you?
I guess it was winning the Diamond Jim Brady at the
Bicycle (which is now the Legends of Poker) three years
in a row. No one’s ever done that. The kicker
to that was that the same guy, Hal Kant, finished third
all three years in a row too.
You travel the world playing
poker. Where’s your favorite place in the world?
Right here. Richardson, Texas…
Ah, home on the range.
What do you do when you’re not playing poker?
I play a little golf. I haven’t played too much
in the last few years because I’ve had some health
problems. I had a heart attack in 2003, which kinda
slowed me down a little bit, but I’m getting back
into it now. I went out and played nine holes –
that’s the first time I’ve done that in
a long time. Next week I’ll go out and play eighteen
holes. Everything’s good right now.
In all your years, what’s
the strangest thing you’ve seen at the poker table?
Worst beat ever: I was playing in a live game years
ago at the Bicycle club with Al Krux. He’s a good
player, but he was running bad that day. He had something
like $490, and he moved all in. The guy two seats to
his left was getting a massage. He held up his hand
showed it to the masseuse and mucked it. It got around
to me on the button with two tens and I called. The
dealer made a mistake; he didn’t see I’d
called and he dropped the deck on the muck, so they
had to reshuffle it all. When they reshuffled, the flop
came K-10-4. Al had two kings in the hole, and the turn
came another ten – so I made four tens to beat
him. But that’s not the kicker. The kicker was
that the guy that had held his hand up to the masseuse
had had the other two tens. That’s the worst beat
in history. You can’t get a worse beat than that.
Do you have any superstitions
at the table?
None per say, although I did offer a dealer money not
to deal in a tournament one time – every time
he dealt to me I’d lose.
What’s the most
money you’ve ever lost on a single hand?
At the 2000 WSOP, I had A-Q against Chris Ferguson’s
A-9. I had 20,000 chips in the pot, which, I guess,
equates to $2.6 million.
Tell us about this game
you’ve got out…
It’s called World Class Poker with TJ. It’s
been getting fantastic reviews. I think it’s the
best software out there for people who want to really
work on their game – and I’m not just saying
that because I’m in it! It’s just that there
are so many different things you can do with it. You
can play these tournaments against amazing artificial
intelligence and there’s a replay button, so you
can go back and see what everybody had on a certain
hand and exactly how they played it and where you went
wrong – it’s just a great teaching tool.
It gives you all the percentages, and if you click on
a button, there’s a little graphic of me that
pops up to tell you what I would most likely do in each
situation. It seems to be the best one on the market
and hopefully it will do real good.
What’s the greatest
bluff you’ve ever made? We hear you actually won
a pot with no cards once…
I was playing in Treeport, LA, with a guy called Wayne
Edmonds. Every time Wayne made a bet, he’d always
put his head down. In those days, we used to deal for
ourselves. I remember I made a bet on fourth street
and I had the nuts, and he called me for $2,000. I turned
around to get a Coke and the guy who was dealing grabbed
my cards. I thought, “Heck. What am I gonna do?
I got money in there and now I’ve got no cards?”
But I knew Wayne had had his head down and hadn’t
seen any thing, so I just put my hands on the table
to make it look like I was covering my cards. They burned
and turned, and I just bet the rest of my chips, and
he threw his hand away. Everybody at the table except
Wayne knew I didn’t have a hand, but they never
said anything. That was the way it went in those days.
What gets on your nerves?
I don’t like people acting up at the poker table.
Phil Hellmuth and I are very good friends, but he’s
the biggest actor ever. I don’t like to see that.
Someone’s being playing real hard in a poker tournament
all day and they go broke on a bad beat or something,
and you get guys going, “Seat open” before
he’s even left the table. I don’t think
there’s any call for that.
You’ve done quite
well playing poker, and earned a few bucks along the
way. What’s your greatest extravagance?
My wife!
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