The Original
Each month, Gary Wise delves into poker’s colorful history to bring you a dramatic hand of yore. Here’s what happened when an ornery ol’ critter named Johnny Moss clashed with the dapper Nick “The Greek” in a four-month long poker extravaganza.
Johnny Moss was as cold, callous and calculating as any man that ever fingered a stack of chips. Author A. Alvarez referred to his character as “true grit without forgiveness.” Amarillo Slim said he “had the type of personality that was well suited to a poker game but not much else.” The classic rounder, he played until his death in 1995 at age 88; at that point he’d traveled thousands of miles to thousands games, winning millions of dollars and three World Series of Poker titles.
He was born in Odessa, Texas, but he didn’t stick around for long. His father lost his sheriff’s job and the family was forced to the road. Johnny’s mother died on the way, and the elder Moss was soon crippled by the menial work he was forced to take on. Johnny dropped out of elementary school, selling newspapers for a penny a piece, and became friends with Ben Binion before they’d reached their tweens. By sixteen, he was working at the Otter Club, a local gambling joint, and learning the tricks of the trade. Within a few years, he was among the best poker players in the world.
By 1949, Moss was a road warrior, traveling from town to town to take down every big game he could find. Binion, who’d departed Texas, rather than see jail time there, had established himself in Las Vegas, taking the Horseshoe Casino to prosperity. When gentleman gambler Nick “The Greek” Dandalos approached Ben with a desire to play the highest stakes poker game of all time, Binion put in a call to his childhood friend. Moss had just finished a four-day marathon game, but he hopped on a plane, took a taxi from the runway to the table, shook Dandalos’ hand, and sat down to play.
The game that followed will never be forgotten. Moss, 42, and The Greek, 57, had an audience within hours, thanks in part to Binion setting them up at the front of the casino, feeding the public’s curiosity for the biggest game the town had ever seen. For five months, Moss and Dandalos played four days at a time, with short sleep breaks in between. The Greek spent those breaks at the craps table. “What are you going to do Johnny?” Nick would tease, “Sleep your life away?”
They alternated games, occasionally joined by players whose minimum $10,000 stake would inevitably be consumed by the two giants. The crowd stood six-deep, living and breathing every hand. Slowly, Moss started to take an advantage. Better-rested, and younger, Moss was setting the trap, losing battles en route to winning the war.
The biggest battle came while the two were playing 5-Card Stud – the classic poker game in which each of the players antes, and on the first deal receives two cards, one face down, one face up. They bet, then dealt three more cards face up, one at a time, with action after each round of cards. With over a quarter-million in front of each of them, Moss and Dandalos anted $100 a piece. Moss started with a six showing and a nine down, while Nick started with a seven face up. Johnny told the story in Alvarez’s classic The Biggest Game in Town:
Low man brings it in. I bet two hunnerd with a six, he raises fifteen hunnerd or two thousand, I call him. The next card comes. I catch a nine; he catches a six. I got two nines then. I make a good bet – five thousand, maybe – an’ he plays back at me, twenny-five thousand. I jus’ call him. I’m figurin’ to take all that money of his, an’ I don’t wanna scare him none. The next card come. He catches a trey, I catch a deuce. Ain’t nuttin’ he got can beat my two nines. I check then to trap him, an’ he bets, jus’ like I wanted. So I raise him wa-ay up there, an’ he calls. I got him in there, all right. There’s a hunnerd thousand dollars in that pot – maybe more; I don’t know exactly – an’ I’m a-winnin’ it. On the end, I catch a trey; he catches a jack. He’s high now with the jack an’ he bets fifty thousand. I cain’t put him on no jack in the hole, you know. He ain’t gonna pay all that money jus’ for the chance to outdraw me. I don’t care what he catches, he’s gotta beat those two nines of mine. So I move in with the rest of my money.
The Greek surveyed the scene. Finally, softly, he spoke; “Mr. Moss, I think I have a jack in the hole.”
“Greek,” Moss answered, “if you got a jack down there, you’re liable to win yourself one hell of a pot.” Dandalos pushed his chips to the middle and turned over the jack of diamonds.
Moss had outplayed Dandalos on the hand. It showed the direction the match was moving in. “He outdrawed me,” Moss remembered. “We had about two hunnerd an’ fifty thousand dollars apiece in that pot, and he won it. But that was all right. I broke him anyway.”
Break him he did. Moss, it’s estimated, took over two million dollars from Dandalos before the latter famously said, “Mr. Moss, I have to let you go.” Benny Binion, meanwhile, had seen the benefits of staging a high-stakes event. The Moss-Dandalos match is now regarded as Benny’s inspiration to create the World Series of Poker. It’s only fitting that Johnny Moss was that event’s first champion. He was the original.
