#294 - David “Chip” Reese, Extraordinary Professional Gambler, is Dead

David “Chip” Reese, regarded as one of the world’s best professional gamblers, died last night, December 3, 2007, at his Nevada home. According to Doug Dalton, his friend and Director of Poker Operations for MGM-Mirage, “Chip was feeling under the weather for the last couple weeks but didn’t take it that seriously. He died last night in his sleep.”

Reese won 3 World Series of Poker bracelets, including the first $50,000 HORSE bracelet in 2006. His greatest fame in poker, however, was in his unofficial capacity as the world’s best all-around high-stakes cash-game player, a position he shared with Doyle Brunson and whoever was running good at the time. But for the last 30 years, Reese was always at the head of the short list.

Reese, nicknamed Chip by his parents before his birth, provided a memorable, enduring balance between competitiveness and decorum. Born in Dayton and educated at Dartmouth, he was an appealing combination of the down-to-earth Midwesterner and the Ivy League frat boy. He was always polite, neatly dressed, and even in temperament regardless of wins or losses. His style was widely admired and emulated by generations of poker players, with the recognition that being friendly and nice was good form and great business. Chip Reese was also regarded as a force for honest poker in Las Vegas, settling there in 1974 and taking a management role in local poker rooms (along with Doyle Brunson, Eric Drache, Bobby Baldwin, and others) to provide a place for skilled players to use their skills and to attract less skilled players.

At the same time, he was ruthlessly competitive, winning fortunes from those he charmed to the poker tables. He also exceled at backgammon, gin rummy and other games. In addition, he was periodically linked to successful sports betting operations.

Inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame at the age of 40 in 1991 - the youngest inductee - that would put his age at 56.

I didn’t know Chip Reese well, though I suspect few people did. I interviewed him in connection with THE PROFESSOR, THE BANKER, AND THE SUICIDE KING during Summer 2004. Although the interview was short and solitary (I have had many, many more interviews and other encounters with most top players), it was very revealing. Reese was an enigma. In an age where just a fraction of his skill created celebrity, he was one of the best known and least understood professional poker players.

Reese deserves a tribute and an examination - for his incomparable talents, his remarkable bearing, and for all he symbolized of an era that he did much to create but left too soon. A full assessment won’t be 100% laudatory. There has to be, to some degree, a recognition that behind the smile and the sunny manner was a man who devoted himself with every fiber of his being to separating you from your money. In fact, a memorial to Chip Reese must recognize the dichotomy in all gamblers: being nice is good business and good form but its goal is to strip other people of their money and leave them feeling alright about their loss. If you are a professional gambler, that’s what you do, and if you have any reservations, your success will be foreclosed or limited.

To really celebrate Chip as well as place his skills and accomplishments in context will take some time. Please be patient. I hope by the end of the week to share my opinions and analysis, as well as what I’ve learned over the past three years about Reese from his contemporaries. I also hope to talk again with some of those people to shed some light on a remarkable man, his remarkable accomplishments, and the strange path he chose and we all, to some degree, have followed.