Jack Straus Profile

Anyone who lived through the Great Depression in the United States was impacted, one way or another, for good or for ill, on how they perceived money. While Jack Strauss was a youngster, born in Texas at the very start of the Depression, there was no question that he had some strong feelings about the concept of money and exactly how much of a hold it should have on a person. Money, at it’s most basic, is a concept, and one that Jack could interpret however he pleased in order to bend it to his will, rather than the other way around.

Take, for example, one of the most famous stories of poker legend.  In 1982, as the World Series of Poker started to be considered the establishment in the pro poker world, Jack was in the main event. He was already considered an aggressive player, having made a name for himself the decade prior a one professional poker player who used money to keep score. There he was, playing in the No Limit Texas Hold’em final event, and he was all in. He lost the hand, but there was a snag; it seems he had forgotten to put in a single chip, worth $500. The story goes that because he did not say All In when he pushed his chips in, only the chips in the pot played, and he was allowed to keep the single chip. Jack took that one chip and turned into a championship win, taking down the field, winning the 1982 World Series of Poker main event and claiming the coveted gold bracelet for his own.

That was the second World Series of Poker bracelet for Jack Strauss, but old Treetop, as he was known, would stop there. He did not stop playing poker, but before he could wrangle another win at the WSOP, he passed away, dying of a heart attack at age 58. He died in sort of romantically appropriate way for a professional poker player; playing a high stakes game of poker at the Bicycle Club.