Doyle Brunson, Chip Reese, Barry Greenstein
I was playing poker at Foxwoods. My game was $20/40 Stud — as big a game as I normally play. I was doing rather well and was up a few hundred bucks — maybe $800. I was feeling pretty good about myself.
There was a big tournament in town and I look over and see none other than Doyle Brunson at the next table. I go over to introduce myself. He remembers me from a while ago and is very polite. As we’re chatting Chip Reese comes by and asks Doyle if he’d like to start. I realize that a game is about to begin. I ask Doyle what the game is. “two four mixed” he says.
“Mixed” means that they’ll be playing half hold’em and half stud — my best game. I think that the game is at least a little too big for me, $200 and $400 — ten times my normal game. Even so, I’m intrigued about the chance to actually play with these two poker immortals, Chip Reese and Doyle Brunson. I figure I’d have enough in my bankroll to play — if I’d be willing to risk $4,000. Then I look at the placard that states the stakes of the game. I see that the game is not $200/400 but $2,000/$4,000!
I continue to make some small talk with Doyle. I ask him about his internet site, Doyle’s Room, and about his son Todd who had just cashed in a major tournament. He answers very politely — as if we are the friends I would like us to be — rather than the near strangers that we surely are. As we’re chatting Barry Greenstein sits down. I can’t sit at the table any more as a game is about to start. I go back to my seat next to their game.
I think about playing $2,000/4,000. The buy-in is $40,000 — almost my entire poker bankroll at the time. I think, briefly, about playing that high — and whether it would be worth putting all of my money at risk just to have an amazing story. And then I see Barry empty out the contents of a felt sack that holds his chips for the game.
He stacks up eight stacks of chips — with about 20 chips per stack I estimate. I think that they’re probably $500 chips and that he’s just stacked up $80,000. But I’m wrong, I notice after looking more carefully. They are not $500 chips. They are $5,000 chips! He has just stacked up close to a million dollars to play this game!!! I realize immediately that my day dream of playing will stay exactly that.
I nod over to Doyle, who is calmly stacking up his own equivalent of my lifetime of earnings. He nods and smiles, as if he could read my mind. He’s such a successful poker player maybe he could.
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