Revelation Regarding the (Alleged) Moss-Dandolos Match

Busy days here on the farm of late, although like everyone I’ve been following all that has gone on at the World Series of Poker thus far. Hard to believe they are only about two weeks into the series, as they’ve already gotten up to the 30th event today.

Have been glad to track the updates on PokerNews once more, and am tuning in over at PokerGO now and then. Speaking of the latter, they finally did get PayPal working and so I got a monthly subscription. They have it on Roku now, too, although I never have been able to get anything to load over there (it seems to stick in a “Retrieving” cycle and never quite opens the live event).

I did want to touch base, though, and let visitors know about a recent “Poker & Pop Culture” column of mine that relates somewhat to the history of the WSOP.

A few weeks back I ran a revised and expanded version of a column focusing on a famous heads-up poker game between Johnny Moss and Nick “The Greek” Dandolos. If you’re reading this blog you’ve probably heard of that match before.

According to most accounts, the pair got together sometime around 1951 (or thereabouts) at Binion’s Horseshoe to play a high-stakes match that lasted several months, with Moss ultimately said to have come away a big winner ($2 million or more, say some). The game was open to the public, goes the story, and for that reason sometimes gets linked to the later idea of the WSOP first run at Binion’s in 1970.

That column, titled “Moss and Dandolos at the Horseshoe - Legend or Myth?” was really more about the many stories about the game than about the game itself.

I included in there how one of the most referenced sources for details regarding the match is Al Alvarez’s The Biggest Game in Town (1983), a favorite poker book of mine that I’ve written about here many, many times over the years.

I also included a bit from Jesse May regarding how some of those who talked to Alvarez for his book (including Moss) likely embellished their tales more than a little bit.

In any case, about a week after that column went up I had a nice surprise when I got a note from a person who works for Jack Binion. The note asked if I could get in touch, as Mr. Binion had some information to share about the Moss-Dandolos story that could help clear up a lot of the uncertainty surrounding it.

I called and after a couple more exchanges ended up getting some fairly remarkable memories from Jack Binion regarding the alleged match. I say “alleged” because one of the clarifications he made was to explain that the match never really happened! At least not at Binion’s, and not in public. And likely not for the super-high stakes often cited, either.

I won’t give away the rest of the story here, but instead point you over to the newer article that shares Jack Binion’s insight:

”Poker & Pop Culture: Jack Binion Sorts Fact From Fiction Regarding Moss-Dandolos Match.”

Rereading The Biggest Game in Town: America, Where Gambling is a Form of Patriotism (6 of 6)

Returning one final time to Chapter 3 of the The Biggest Game in Town by Al Alvarez...

Just after that bit from Mickey Appleman about the “romance” of poker, the author elaborates further on the point and how he interprets it as a “romance of personal liberty” the life of a gambler can provide.

It is this sense of freedom from the “straight” world “that mesmerizes all the high rollers,” Alvarez insists. “They pride themselves on the fact that they survive spectacularly well outside the system.”

No bosses. Even the government has limited (or no) influence, given the way the money changing hands is rarely if ever reported as taxable income or expenses. In other words, complete independence -- or at least the belief one enjoys such -- with one’s success and/or failure directly consequent to one’s “own unaided talents.”

Alvarez concludes the chapter with an exchange he had with Jack Binion regarding this business of “personal liberty” and living “outside the system.” Binion tells Alvarez a story about an older gambler who -- like many of the high rollers -- had gone busto several times. Finally, at age 73, he hits a hot streak and finds himself up $700,000. Ignoring others’ advice, he saves none of it and ends up broke once more. The story could be said to symbolize various things, I suppose, but here it mainly functions as yet another example of personal freedom.

That’s when Binion brings up America. Where freedom rings and rings, dontcha know.

Speaking of the old fellow losing his roll yet again, Binion notes how “‘If you go broke here in America, you don’t really starve to death.’” His point isn’t really to refer to the various programs in place to aid the needy, but rather to argue that class differences in the U.S. aren’t as significant as they are in other countries. “‘Once you reach the lower middle class in United States,’” says Binion, “‘there’s no great difference between the top and bottom.’”

Alvarez isn’t so sure about this point of view, particularly when Binion insists that “‘if these guys [the high rollers] go broke they are going to have to play cheaper. That’s the only difference.’” Alvarez responds with incredulity at such nonchalance. “‘Cheaper?’” he says to Binion. “‘There are fortunes changing hands every day.’”

Alvarez notes how Binion shakes his head in apparent disappointment at his having failed to understand. Again we’re back to that disconnect between the “different ordering of reality” the high-stakes gamblers recognize and the world in which the rest of us live -- a world where the difference between $700,000 and $700 means a whole heckuva lot.

Binion tries to explain the “free enterprise system” and how it allows each individual to spend his or her money however he or she wishes. Such a system also allows each person to assign value with freedom, too, e.g., to pay $100 for a bottle of wine. “‘To me that’s not worth it,’” says Binion, “‘but I’m not going to say it is foolish or wrong to spend that kind of money’” on a bottle of wine.

“‘That’s America,’” he adds, as if to provide a succinct explanation for what appears to be a highly complicated -- even paradoxical -- “system.” It’s all a bit of a head-scratcher for Alvarez -- “the uncomprehending foreigner,” as he imagines himself to appear to Binion.

America, land of the free. Where it is possible, if one desires, to exchange hundreds of thousands of dollars for small, round, clay chips, then utterly disregard all of the other goods for which that money might have been exchanged. Binion says “That’s America.” Alvarez adds “that, too, is Las Vegas -- the only place on earth where they justify gambling as a form of patriotism.”

These are passages I find most interesting to discuss with my “Poker in American Film and Culture” class. They seem to help support the course’s thesis, namely, that poker can serve as a “lens” through which to examine and learn about American culture. In a way that’s kind of what Alvarez is doing throughout his entire book -- looking at poker while learning about the U.S.

That said, I admit I feel a little like Alvarez here at the end of Chapter 3, finding the “lesson” Binion is trying teach to be less than obvious. Nevertheless, the exchange readily shows how poker provides a context for all sorts of so-called “American” ideas and values (freedom, liberty, independence, the “pursuit of happiness,” etc.). And Alvarez’s conclusion does somehow ring true. Somehow it makes sense to regard “gambling as a form of patriotism” in America -- a country founded, expanded, governed, and populated by gamblers throughout its history.

Thanks for indulging me for this little sequence of posts. (Will return to the usual programming tomorrow.) If you haven’t read The Biggest Game in Town before, I do hope I’ve intrigued you to pick it up. Not only will you learn a lot about the history of poker, the WSOP, and the culture of Vegas circa early 1980s, but a lot else, too, about the U.S., questions of “reality,” and human nature, generally speaking.