Mark Rogers

Below is an excerpt for an article I did for Southern Gaming and Destinations magazine

The 80's

USA's hockey team won gold in 1980 overcoming the dominate Russians along the way in what has been coined the Miracle on Ice. In as much dramatic fashion that sitting in a chair and fingering chips can muster, Stu Ungar accomplished a similar feat in poker. The first two years of the '70's only knew one champion and the next decade would be no different. Stu Ungar, the gin rummy master, made his World Series of Poker Main Event debut in 1980. He was an aggressive and brash kid. His reputation as a New York rummy player had preceded him. As it turned out 'the Kid' was also pretty good at Texas Hold'em. In 1980 and again in 1981, Stu Ungar won the Main Event Championship event at the World Series of Poker. Stu's first title came against dominate Texan players Doyle Brunson and Johnny Moss at the final table; Brunson ended up being Stu's head's up competitor.
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A true poker miracle actually took place in 1982. As the saying goes, all you need is 'a chip and chair'. Never did this expression ring so true than in the 1982 Main Event championship. Jack 'Treetop' Straus pushed in what he thought were his remaining chips into a losing effort. He began his exit, until someone noticed a single $500 chip partially hidden from view underneath a napkin. This was Straus' saving grace. He bet his last chip on the next hand and won. Through a series of stealing blinds Straus collected a formidable stack. His remarkable rush ended with a Main Event championship victory.
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An appropriate title for Binion's tournament could have been the Texas Series of Poker. But by the 1980's the title could have shifted to the America Series of Poker, before finally settling, in 1987, as a true World Series of Poker. Johnny 'the Orient Express' Chan was born in Canton, China and immigrated to America when he was nine and eventually resided in Las Vegas. Chan learned the game through employment on the Strip. At one point players welcomed his money at the table, but the Chinese native learned poker quickly as he transformed himself into a poker shark. 'The Orient Express' became the fourth person in history to win back-to-back Main Event titles, doing so in 1987 and 1988. The west coast was also enjoying the same back-to-back success with the Los Angeles Lakers. Jerry Buss, owner of the Lakers and poker regular himself, challenged Chan that if he won a third poker championship the Lakers would follow suit with a three-peat. Chan came close; finishing second in 1989 to the youngest World Series of Poker champion ever, Phil Hellmuth (from Madison, Wisconsin.) In similar fashion, the Lakers placed runner-up to a team from the Midwest; the Detroit Pistons.
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Mark "52" Rogers is the author of the '52 Greatest Moments World Series of Poker'
available at www.52pokermoments.com