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#142 – FTOPS 9A – Boston is Red
The host of today’s FTOPS #9, $100 + $9 NLHE with rebuys, is Alan Boston. I don’t know Boston well but he is one of the most storied characters in gambling. Here are the bits and pieces, in no particular order:
*Alan is one of all-time greats at betting college sports. He was one of the main characters of Chad Millman’s excellent book about sports betting in Las Vegas, THE ODDS.
* Alan Boston was not Alan Boston’s born name. He got the gambling nickname “Boston Red” because he had red hair. Then “Boston.” And because his born first name was Alan, he is now Alan Boston.
*Because Boston is shaved-head bald, the question arises how he was ever “Boston Red”. From what I read, he used to be a chunky, out-of-shape guy with kinky red hair. Then he took his life by the horns, became a fanatic of physical conditioning (on the few occasions I’ve seen him, he looks like he’s in great shape), and shaved his head.
*He is very bright, very outspoken, and (about the right things) very sentimental. During the time of THE ODDS, he spent his summers in (I think) Rhode Island, owning horses and watching them race. He was a sucker for buying the horses no one said would amount to anything and treating them more like friends than working animals or investments.
*He was featured in Michael Konik’s THE SMART MONEY. Konik is a favorite writer of mine and the subject of the book, the Computer Group, is one of those great, largely unexplored territories. But for some reason, the book is not a favorite of mine. One of the reasons is that Konik has this way of trying to take you on “the inside” by letting you know how top-secret his information is, and he overuses it. It can be a great technique, and I use it myself, but Michael uses it SO MUCH that you eventually think maybe he’s putting you on, and the stuff’s not as top-secret as he says. That happens in this book, as he changes the names of EVERYTHING. That includes Billy Walters, the leader of the Computer Group, who has given interviews about the Group’s activities, so I don’t know (a) why his name should be secret, or (b) how anyone wouldn’t know who Konik is writing about. He even changed the names of non-gamblers WHO WROTE THEIR OWN BOOKS. He refers to Art Manteris, who wrote SUPERBOOKIE, about running the Las Vegas Hilton sports book, as “Super Moe” Pateris. So Alan Boston, a/k/a Boston Red, is Brooklyn Red, or so I was old by someone who read further into the book than me.
*Boston was in the poker room at the Wynn on the day that Andy Beal and Ted Forrest played The War of Two Furies. (I reproduced my notes of that day in 10 entries in this blog.) He happened to be playing at an adjacent table. He left the game to walk down the ramp – a shortcut out of the room in the high-limit section – and was told by a security guard he had to take a different route. The ramp was reserved for the game in the corner. Boston argued for awhile (as he should have). I was paying attention to the game but I heard him say at one point, “I’ll be writing a letter about this.”
*Alan Boston owns a pair of Robert Williamson III’s lucky socks, for which he paid $500.
*Boston is not a regular at the World Series of Poker but is considered a superb Seven Card Stud player. Boston has his tournament results spread among three different names in the Hendon Mob Database, but he has made four World Series Stud final tables (in VERY limited action), as well as final tables in 1/2 Stud 1/2 Hold ‘Em and HORSE.
