The Hollywood Reporter
The Hollywood Reporter is an American digital and print magazine, website, which focuses on the Hollywood film and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade paper, in 2010 switched to a weekly large-format print magazine with a revamped website. Headquartered in Los Angeles, THR is part of the Billboard-Hollywood Reporter Media Group, a group of properties that includes Billboard and SpinMedia, it is owned by Valence Media, a holding company co-founded by Todd Boehly, an executive of its previous owners, Guggenheim Partners and Eldridge Industries. THR was founded in 1930 by William R. "Billy" Wilkerson as Hollywood's first daily entertainment trade newspaper. The first edition appeared on September 3, 1930 and featured Wilkerson's front-page "Tradeviews" column, which became influential; the newspaper appeared Monday to Saturday for the first 10 years, except for a brief period Monday to Friday from 1940. Wilkerson ran the THR until his death in September 1962, although his final column appeared 18 months prior.
Wilkerson's wife, Tichi Wilkerson Kassel, took over as publisher and editor-in-chief when her husband died. From the late 1930s, Wilkerson used THR to push the view that the industry was a communist stronghold. In particular, he opposed the screenplay writers' trade union, the Screen Writers Guild, which he called the "Red Beachhead." In 1946 the Guild considered creating an American Authors' Authority to hold copyright for writers, instead of ownership passing to the studios. Wilkerson devoted his "Tradeviews" column to the issue on July 29, 1946, headlined "A Vote for Joe Stalin." He went to confession before publishing it, knowing the damage it would cause, but was encouraged by the priest to go ahead with it. The column contained the first industry names, including Dalton Trumbo and Howard Koch, on what became the Hollywood blacklist, known as "Billy's list." Eight of the 11 people Wilkerson named were among the "Hollywood Ten" who were blacklisted after hearings in 1947 by the House Un-American Activities Committee.
When Wilkerson died, his THR obituary said that he had "named names and card numbers and was credited with being chiefly responsible for preventing communists from becoming entrenched in Hollywood production."In 1997, THR reporter David Robb wrote a story about the newspaper's involvement, but the editor, Robert J. Dowling, declined to run it. For the blacklist's 65th anniversary in 2012, the THR published a lengthy investigative piece about Wilkerson's role, by reporters Gary Baum and Daniel Miller; the same edition carried an apology from Wilkerson's son W. R. Wilkerson III, he wrote. On April 11, 1988, Tichi Wilkerson Kassel sold the paper to BPI Communications, owned by Affiliated Publications, for $26.7 million. Robert J. Dowling became THR president in 1988, editor-in-chief and publisher in 1991. Dowling hired Alex Ben Block as editor in 1990. Block and Teri Ritzer dampened much of the sensationalism and cronyism, prominent in the paper under the Wilkersons. In 1994, BPI Communications was sold to Verenigde Nederlandse Uitgeverijen for $220 million.
After Block left, former Variety film editor, Anita Busch, became editor between 1999 and 2001. Busch was credited with making the paper competitive with Variety. Tony Uphoff assumed the publisher position in November 2005. In March 2006, a private equity consortium led by Blackstone and KKR, both with ties to the conservative movement in the United States, acquired THR along with the other assets of VNU, it joined those publications with AdWeek and A. C. Nielsen to form The Nielsen Company. In December 2009, Prometheus Global Media, a newly formed company formed by Pluribus Capital Management and Guggenheim Partners, chaired by Jimmy Finkelstein, CEO of News Communications, parent of political journal The Hill, acquired THR from Nielsen Business Media, it pledged to grow the company. Richard Beckman of Condé Nast, was appointed as CEO. In 2010, Beckman purchased THR from Guggenheim Partners and Pluribus Capital, recruited Janice Min, the former editor-in-chief of Us Weekly, to "eviscerate" the existing daily trade paper and reinvent it as a glossy, large-format weekly magazine.
The Hollywood Reporter relaunched with a weekly print edition and a revamped website that enabled it to break news. Eight months after its initial report, The New York Times took note of the many scoops THR had generated, adding that the new glossy format seemed to be succeeding with its "rarefied demographic", stating, "They managed to change the subject by going weekly... The large photos, lush paper stock and great design are a kind of narcotic here."By February 2013, the Times returned to THR, filing a report on a party for Academy Award nominees the magazine had hosted at the Los Angeles restaurant Spago. Noting the crowd of top celebrities in attendance, the Times alluded to the fact that many Hollywood insiders were now referring to THR as "the new Vanity Fair". Ad sales since Min's hiring were up more than 50%, while traffic to the magazine's website had grown by 800%. Since January 2014, The Hollywood Reporter has been led by co-presidents Janice John Amato. John Kilcullen replaced Uphoff in October 2006, as publisher of Billboard.
Kilcullen was a defendant in Billboard's infamous "dildo" lawsuit, in which he was accused of race discrimination and sexual harassment. VNU settled the suit on the courthouse steps. Kilcullen "exited" Nielsen in February 2008 "to pursue his passion as an entrepreneur." Matthew King, vice president for content and audience, editorial director Howard Burns, executive editor Peter Pryor left the paper in a wave of layoffs in December 2006.
Johnny Moss
Johnny Moss was a gambler and professional poker player. He was the first winner of the World Series of Poker Main Event, at the time a cash game event in which he was awarded the title by the vote of his peers in 1970, he twice won the current tournament format of the WSOP Main Event in 1971 and 1974. He was one of the charter inductees into the Poker Hall of Fame in 1979. Moss was born on May 14, 1907 in Marshall and grew up in Dallas, where he learned how to gamble as a young boy. A group of cheaters taught him how to cheat in games; as a teenager, he was hired by a local saloon to watch over games and make sure they were played fairly. While he was keeping games safe from cheaters, he was learning the strategy behind playing poker. Two years Moss became a rounder and traveled the country looking for gambling action. In the 1950s, Moss moved to Texas to be a part of the oil boom and gambling action. Moss and his fellow gamblers were part of one of the biggest poker games in Texas for many years.
In 1949, Moss played with Nick the Greek in a five-month-long "heads up" poker marathon set up by mob boss Benny Binion, winning between $2 and $4 million. At the conclusion of the game, Nick the Greek uttered what has become one of the most famous poker quotes ever: "Mr. Moss, I have to let you go." This game is cited as the inspiration behind the WSOP. This game became the foundation for Al Alvarez's book The Biggest Game in Town and is one of the best known stories in poker. Despite being one of the best-known poker stories, a soon to be released book, Showgirl Stories, by Steve Fischer claims the game never took place. According to Fischer, there were no stories or reports of this tournament until six years after Nick's death. Binion never spoke of the game when providing a detailed history of Las Vegas and avoided answering questions about the game by saying, "Well, my memory ain't what it used to be." While Nick the Greek was covered by the national media, there are no news reports in any local or national source.
Fischer says that nearly every version of the story is identical to the version first told by Moss beginning circa 1971. The story is said to have taken place in 1949 at the Horseshoe Casino, a casino that did not exist for another year and a half. Fischer points out that during the time that Binion set up the game, he was fighting off a request from Texas to have him extradited; because of his past, Binion lost his license to run a gambling establishment in 1948 and did not regain it until April 13, 1950. He was not granted a license to open the Horseshoe Casino until December 5, 1952. Fischer believes that the notion of Binion sponsoring a poker game, in front of a window, of a casino that had not opened, while fighting extradition is "absurd."In reaction to a 2017 pokernews.com article on the topic, Jack Binion, at the time 80 years old, attempted to clarify. To address the heart of the matter first, Binion explained that Johnny Moss and Nick Dandolos did play a poker match in 1949, although it was not at the Horseshoe at all.
Nor was it the months-long spectacle open to spectators many have suggested the match to have been. "It took place at the Flamingo," Binion explained. It was "not in public." This, was a quote from Dandolos himself. Meanwhile, a few years there was another poker game involving Moss, this time at the Horseshoe. "There was a big game at the Horseshoe in the early'50s," Binion explained, "but Nick didn't participate." The game featured "multiple players" including Moss, who came and went as the game continued around the clock. Unlike the game at the Flamingo in 1949, the one "was held in public." The confusion, Binion surmised stemmed from Moss having participated in both games. However, there was never one between him and Dandolos at the Horseshoe, the pair never did have a high-stakes heads-up battle in public. Binion clarified that the inspiration for the WSOP was the held Texas Gamblers Reunion and not any Moss/Dandolos match. Moss won the 1970, 1971, 1974 World Series of Poker Main Events. For the 1970 Main Event, Moss was elected champion by his peers and received a silver cup as his prize.
A story about that election which has appeared in print several times has every one of the six players voting for himself as the best player, that it was only when the players were asked to vote for the second best player that Moss emerged. He played at every WSOP from 1970 through 1995, during his career, he won nine WSOP bracelets, placing him in fifth place all-time, behind Johnny Chan, Doyle Brunson, Phil Ivey, Phil Hellmuth. Moss had at least a share of the lifetime WSOP bracelet lead up until the 2005 World Series of Poker, where Johnny Chan won his tenth career bracelet. During Moss's career, he won $834,422 in WSOP tournament play. *In 1970, Moss was voted champion by his peers and was awarded a silver cup.**Moss set the record for the oldest bracelet winner in WSOP history, which still stands as of the end of the 2017 World Series of Poker. Moss's wife was Virgie, from West Texas. One of Moss's strategies for tournament poker was survival in the early stages; as the tournament goes on and blinds increase, his strategy was to test opponents with aggression and bigger pots.
Fellow professional Doyle Brunson put Moss on his Mount Rushmore of poker players, along with Puggy Pearson, Sailor Roberts, Chip Reese. An authorized autobiography on Moss, called Champion of Champions, was written by Don Jenkins. Hendon Mob tournament results
Phil Ivey
Phillip Dennis Ivey Jr. is an American professional poker player who has won ten World Series of Poker bracelets, one World Poker Tour title, appeared at nine World Poker Tour final tables. Ivey was at one time regarded by numerous poker observers and contemporaries as the best all-around player in the world. In 2017, he was elected to the Poker Hall of Fame. Ivey first began to develop his poker skills by playing against co-workers at a New Brunswick, New Jersey, telemarketing firm in the late 1990s. One of his nicknames, "No Home Jerome", stems from the fake ID card he secured to play poker in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in his teenage years, he was given the nickname "The Phenom" after winning three World Series of Poker bracelets in 2002. His other nickname is "the Tiger Woods of Poker". 2017 was a slow year for Ivey who missed all major international events in the West, focusing on Asia, more Hong Kong, in order to play the biggest games of this part of the world. He announced in an interview his return to the circuit for 2018.
Ivey's tournament accomplishments include winning three bracelets at the 2002 World Series of Poker, tying Phil Hellmuth Jr, Ted Forrest, Puggy Pearson for most World Series tournament wins in a single year. Ivey has bracelets in Pot Limit Omaha from 2000 and 2005. In 2000, he was the first person to defeat Amarillo Slim heads-up at a WSOP final table, his victory over Amarillo Slim was for his first career bracelet. In addition to his ten World Series bracelets, Ivey has had great success in the WSOP Main Event, he placed in the top 25 four times between the 2002 World Series of Poker and the 2009 World Series of Poker. Ivey finished 23rd in 2002, 10th in 2003, 20th in 2005, 7th in 2009. In 2009, Ivey won his sixth career bracelet in the $2,500 No-Limit 2-7 Draw Lowball Event of the 2009 WSOP, he defeated a field of 147 players to catch his bracelet. He won a long heads-up battle against John Monette, he proceeded to win another bracelet in the $2,500 1/2 Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo 1/2 Omaha Hi/Lo event besting a field of 376 people.
He defeated Ming Lee heads-up. While winning the $2,500 1/2 Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo - 1/2 Omaha Hi/Lo event he managed to place 22nd in the $5000 Pot-Limit Omaha Eight-or-better despite only playing during the breaks in the Stud/Omaha event. In the 2010 World Series of Poker, Ivey received the most votes for the Tournament of Champions. At the 2010 WSOP, Ivey won his eighth bracelet in the $3,000 H. O. R. S. E. Event in a final table made up of other notable players, which included Bill Chen, John Juanda, Jeff Lisandro, Chad Brown. Between 2002 and 2009, Ivey finished among the top 25 players in the Main Event four times, in fields ranging in size from 600 entrants to just under 7,000. Ivey finished 10th in the 2003 WSOP Main Event, 7th in 2009. In 2009, his A ♣ K ♠ lost to Darvin Moon's A ♦ Q ♠. With 10 World Series of Poker bracelets, Ivey is tied with Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chan for the second most all-time. At age 38, he is the youngest player to win ten bracelets. In addition, no other player has accumulated ten bracelets more quickly.
He is the all-time record holder for most bracelets won in non-Holdem events, with all 10 of his victories coming in non-Holdem events. His 2010 win gave him the lead over Billy Baxter, he is the WSOP record holder for most mixed-game bracelets having won five in his career. He won one in S. H. O. E. in 2002, Omaha Hi/Lo / 7 Card Stud Hi/Lo in 2009, H. O. R. S. E. in 2010, WSOP APAC Mixed Event in 2013, Eight Game Mix in 2014. Thomas "Amarillo Slim" Preston's last final table appearance at the World Series of Poker was his heads-up match against Phil Ivey where Ivey won his first bracelet. An "A" following a year denotes bracelet won at the World Series of Poker Asia-Pacific Ivey has reached nine final tables on the World Poker Tour, he has lost several of these WPT events by being eliminated while holding the same starting hand each time, an ace and a queen. Nine out of the twelve times Ivey has cashed in a WPT event, he has made the television final table. During the sixth season of the WPT in February 2008, Ivey made the final table at the LA Poker Classic at Commerce Casino that included 14-time bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth and Nam Le capturing the $1,596,100 first prize and putting an end to his streak of seven WPT final tables without a victory.
Ivey has earned close to three million dollars in WPT cashes. Ivey made his debut on the European Poker Tour in Barcelona, September 2006, he came to the final table of nine as the chip leader, but he finished runner-up to Bjørn-Erik Glenne from Norway. In 2006, Ivey played in The London All Star Challenge of the inaugural European Poker Masters. Ivey made it to the final table to finish seventh, collected £6,700. In November 2005, Ivey won the $1,000,000 first prize at the Monte Carlo Millions tournament; the following day, Ivey took home another $600,000 for finishing first at "The FullTiltPoker. Net Invitational Live from Monte Carlo", his six opponents were Mike Matusow, Phil Hellmuth, Gus Hansen, Chris Ferguson, Dave Ulliott, John Juanda. On the January 22, 2007 airing of NBC's Poker After Dark, Ivey won the $120,000 winner-take-all "Earphones Please" tournament by eliminating Matusow, Tony G, Andy Bloch and Sam Farha. On the April 15, 2007 airing of NBC's "National Heads
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was an American politician who served as the 37th president of the United States from 1969 to 1974. He had served as the 36th vice president of the United States from 1953 to 1961, prior to that as both a U. S. representative and senator from California. Nixon was born in California. After completing his undergraduate studies at Whittier College, he graduated from Duke University School of Law in 1937 and returned to California to practice law, he and his wife Pat moved to Washington in 1942 to work for the federal government. He subsequently served on active duty in the U. S. Navy Reserve during World War II. Nixon was elected to the House of Representatives in 1946 and to the Senate in 1950, his pursuit of the Hiss Case established his reputation as a leading anti-communist and elevated him to national prominence. He was the running mate of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Republican Party presidential nominee in the 1952 election. Nixon served for eight years as Vice President, becoming the second-youngest vice president in history at age 40.
He waged an unsuccessful presidential campaign in 1960, narrowly losing to John F. Kennedy, lost a race for governor of California to Pat Brown in 1962. In 1968, he ran for the presidency again and was elected, defeating incumbent Vice President Hubert Humphrey. Nixon ended American involvement in the war in Vietnam in 1973 and brought the American POWs home, ended the military draft. Nixon's visit to China in 1972 led to diplomatic relations between the two nations and he initiated détente and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with the Soviet Union the same year, his administration transferred power from Washington D. C. to the states. He imposed wage and price controls for ninety days, enforced desegregation of Southern schools, established the Environmental Protection Agency and began the War on Cancer. Nixon presided over the Apollo 11 moon landing, which signaled the end of the moon race, he was reelected in one of the largest electoral landslides in U. S. history in 1972 when he defeated George McGovern.
In his second term, Nixon ordered an airlift to resupply Israeli losses in the Yom Kippur War, resulting in the restart of the Middle East peace process and an oil crisis at home. The Nixon administration supported a coup in Chile that ousted the government of Salvador Allende and propelled Augusto Pinochet to power. By late 1973, the Watergate scandal escalated. On August 9, 1974, he resigned in the face of certain impeachment and removal from office—the only time a U. S. president has done so. After his resignation, he was issued a controversial pardon by Gerald Ford. In 20 years of retirement, Nixon wrote nine books and undertook many foreign trips, helping to rehabilitate his image into that of an elder statesman, he suffered a debilitating stroke on April 18, 1994 and died four days at the age of 81. Richard Milhous Nixon was born on January 9, 1913 in Yorba Linda, California, in a house, built by his father, his parents were Francis A. Nixon, his mother was a Quaker, his father converted from Methodism to the Quaker faith.
Nixon was a descendant of the early American settler, Thomas Cornell, an ancestor of Ezra Cornell, the founder of Cornell University, as well as of Jimmy Carter and Bill Gates. Nixon's upbringing was marked by evangelical Quaker observances of the time, such as refraining from alcohol and swearing. Nixon had four brothers: Harold, Donald and Edward. Four of the five Nixon boys were named after kings who had ruled in legendary Britain. Nixon's early life was marked by hardship, he quoted a saying of Eisenhower to describe his boyhood: "We were poor, but the glory of it was we didn't know it"; the Nixon family ranch failed in 1922, the family moved to Whittier, California. In an area with many Quakers, Frank Nixon opened a grocery gas station. Richard's younger brother. At the age of twelve, a spot was found on Richard's lung, with a family history of tuberculosis, he was forbidden to play sports; the spot was found to be scar tissue from an early bout of pneumonia. Young Richard attended East Whittier Elementary School, where he was president of his eighth-grade class.
His parents believed that attending Whittier High School had caused Richard's older brother Harold to live a dissolute lifestyle before he fell ill of tuberculosis, so they sent Richard to the larger Fullerton Union High School. He had to ride a school bus for an hour each way during his freshman year, he received excellent grades, he lived with an aunt in Fullerton during the week. He played junior varsity football, missed a practice though he was used in games, he had greater success as a debater, winning a number of championships and taking his only formal tutelage in public speaking from Fullerton's Head of English, H. Lynn Sheller. Nixon remembered Sheller's words, "Remember, speaking is conversation... don't shout at people. Talk to them. Converse with them." Nixon stated. At the start of his junior year beginning in September 1928, Richard's parents permitted him to transfer to Whittier High School. At Whittier High, Nixon suffered his first electoral defeat, for student body president, he rose at 4 a.m. to drive the family truck into Los Angeles and purchase vegetables at the market.
He drove to the store to wash and display them, befo
Crandell Addington
Crandell Addington is an entrepreneur and poker player, best known as one of the founders of the World Series of Poker, is a member of the Poker Hall of Fame. Known as "Dandy" because he was always well-dressed, Addington was a regular player in the Texas poker circuit in the 1960s. In 1969, he won the Texas Gamblers Convention in Nevada. At the time, Addington was a self-made millionaire who played poker for fun. Addington participated in the first World Series of Poker that year along with Amarillo Slim, Doyle Brunson, Sailor Roberts, Puggy Pearson, Carl Cannon. Addington made the final table of the WSOP Main Event every year from 1972 to 1979, still holds the record for most final table appearances, he finished second on two occasions, losing to Johnny Moss in 1974 and Bobby Baldwin in 1978. However, since the WSOP Main Event was winner-take-all until 1978, most of these appearances were not in the money finishes. Although he is no longer an active player and has not had a tournament cash since 1990, fellow Hall of Famer Doyle Brunson has described him as a "No Limit Hold'em Legend".
In 2005, Addington took another shot at a WSOP win when he returned to Vegas to be inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame, but did not fare as well as he had in the 1970s. As of 2008, his total live tournament winnings exceed $160,000. Addington graduated from Southwestern University with majors in economics and accounting, he left his professional poker career in the 1980s to put his business degree to work. Over the course of his 40 years as an entrepreneur, he founded successful businesses ranging from chemical manufacturing to oil and gas exploration, he is the the CEO, Director of Phoenix Biotechnology, a company that focuses on cancer treatment research. Phoenix Biotechnology
Larry Flynt
Larry Claxton Flynt Jr. is an American publisher and the president of Larry Flynt Publications. LFP produces magazines, such as Hustler, sexually graphic videos. Flynt has fought several high profile legal battles involving the First Amendment, has unsuccessfully run for public office, he is paralyzed from the waist down due to injuries sustained in a 1978 murder attempt by serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin. In 2003, Arena magazine listed him at No. 1 on the "50 Powerful People in Porn" list. Flynt was born in Lakeville, Magoffin County, the first of three children to 23-year-old Larry Claxton Flynt Sr. a sharecropper and a World War II veteran, 17-year-old Edith, a homemaker. He had two younger siblings: brother Jimmy Ray Flynt, his father served in the United States Army in the European Theatre of World War II. Due to his father's absence, Flynt was raised by his mother and maternal grandmother for the first three years of his life. Flynt was raised in poverty, claimed Magoffin County was the poorest county in the nation during the Great Depression.
In 1951, Flynt's sister, died of leukemia at age four. The death provoked his parents' divorce one year later. Two years Flynt returned to live in Magoffin County with his father because he disliked his mother's new boyfriend. Flynt attended Salyersville High School in the ninth grade. However, he ran away from home and, despite being only 15 years old, joined the United States Army using a counterfeit birth certificate, it was around that time. After being honorably discharged, Flynt returned to his mother in Indiana and found employment at the Inland Manufacturing Company, an affiliate of General Motors. However, there was a union-led slowdown and he was laid off after only three months, he returned to his father in Kentucky. For a brief period, he became a bootlegger but stopped when he learned that county deputies were searching for him. After living on his savings for two months, he enlisted in the United States Navy in July 1960, he became a radar operator on USS Enterprise. He was the operator on duty.
He was honorably discharged in July 1964. In early 1965, Flynt took $1,800 from his savings and bought his mother's Dayton, bar, the Keewee, he was soon making $1,000 a week. He worked as many as 20 hours a day, he had to break up fistfights between drunken customers. Flynt decided to open a new, higher-class bar, which would be the first in the area to feature nude hostess dancers. From 1968 onward, with the help of his brother Jimmy and his girlfriend Althea Leasure, he opened Hustler Clubs in Akron, Columbus and Toledo, Ohio. Soon each club grossed between $260,000 and $520,000 a year, he acquired the Dayton franchise of a small newspaper called Bachelor's Beat, which he published for two years before selling it. At the same time, he closed a money-losing vending-machine business. In January 1972, Flynt created the Hustler Newsletter, a two-page, black-and-white publication about his clubs; this item became so popular with his customers that by May 1972, he expanded the Hustler Newsletter to 16 pages to 32 pages in August 1973.
As a result of the 1973 oil crisis, the American economy entered recession. Revenues of Hustler Clubs declined, Flynt had to refinance his debts or declare bankruptcy, he decided to turn the Hustler Newsletter into a sexually explicit magazine with national distribution. He paid the start-up costs of the new magazine by deferring payment of sales taxes his clubs owed on their activities. In July 1974, the first issue of Hustler was published. Although the first few issues were unnoticed, within a year the magazine became lucrative and Flynt was able to pay his tax debts. Flynt's friend Al Goldstein said that Hustler took its inspiration from his own tabloid SCREW, but credited him with accomplishing what he had not: creating a national publication. In November 1974, Hustler showed photos of open vulvas. Flynt had to fight to publish each issue, as many people, including some at his distribution company, found the magazine too explicit and threatened to remove it from the market. Shortly thereafter, Flynt was approached by a paparazzo who had taken pictures of former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis while she was sunbathing nude on vacation in 1971.
He published them in the August 1975 issue. That issue attracted widespread attention, 1 million copies were sold within a few days. Now a millionaire, Flynt bought a $375,000 mansion. On March 6, 1978, during a legal battle related to obscenity in Gwinnett County, Georgia and his local lawyer, Gene Reeves Jr. were returning to the Gwinnett County Courthouse when they were shot on the sidewalk in front of 136 South Perry Street in Lawrenceville by a gunman standing near an alley across the street. The shooting left Flynt paralyzed with permanent spinal cord damage, in need of a wheelchair. Flynt's injuries caused him constant, excruciating pain and he was addicted to painkillers until multiple surgeries deadened the affected nerves, he suffered a stroke caused by one of several overdoses on his analgesic medication. He has had pronunciation difficulties since. Joseph Paul Franklin, a white supremacist and s
1972 World Series of Poker
The 1972 World Series of Poker was a series of poker tournaments held during early May 1972 at the Binion's Horseshoe in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was the 3rd annual installment of the World Series of Poker, the 2nd one to feature the freezeout structure. In comparison with the previous year's series, the number of events was cut back and the buy-ins were raised, resulting in one preliminary event and the Main Event both having the same buy-in of $10,000; the preliminary event featured 5-card stud poker and was won by Bill Boyd, the same man who won the 1971 5-card stud preliminary event. The previous years' double champion Johnny Moss was defeated early in the main event and Thomas "Amarillo Slim" Preston went on to win the tournament after a series of deals; the preliminary event had a small turnout, featuring only last year's 5-card stud champion Bill Boyd, an unknown player. The event was played out on May 7, Boyd relieved the other player of his money, cashing for $20,000. Boyd went on to win 2 more 5-card stud events in 1973 and 1974 until 5-card stud was dropped from the WSOP slate due to waning popularity.
12 people were slated to appear at the main event, but due to attractive side cash games only 8 of them appeared at the tables on May 11, the date the event was scheduled to run. Half of each player's $10,000 buy-in was covered by Benny Binion, looking to gain publicity from the event and thus draw bigger crowds into Binion's Horseshoe; the winner of previous 2 WSOP main events, Johnny Moss, took an early lead in the tournament, but soon ended up eliminated. Moss hit a set of deuces with 2-2 on a 9-7-2 flop and after a 10 came on the turn, he got all-in versus Doyle Brunson's pocket aces. However, Brunson hit a 3rd A on the river to win the hand. Moss had no chips left and got eliminated shortly afterwards. With 4 players left on the 2nd day of the tournament, Amarillo Slim, the would-be champion, was short-stacked with less than 2,000 chips. Beating Brunson's pocket 10 with trip 5s on a 5-5-3 flop, Slim made his way back into the game and soon saw Jack Straus eliminated. With only 3 players remaining, Jack Binion led a TV crew to the poker table.
At that point and Pearson announced they did not want to win the event. Brunson was not only afraid of not being let in on future lucrative cash games if he were to be pronounced the world champion of poker, but of a tax audit; the players struck a deal whereupon Pearson and Brunson would let Slim win the tournament, but in return they would take the cash value of their current chip stacks from Slim's prize. Jack Binion was cross with the outcome, as players changed their play to let Slim win, he held a meeting with the players in the Sombrero room of the Binion's Horseshoe, demanding that players resume fair play. Brunson laid out his reasons and Binion allowed him to withdraw from the tournament and cash his chips, while the reason for Brunson's departure was reported to be an stomachache; the sum that Brunson received in the end is disputed. After Brunson left and Slim resumed play. According to Slim, Pearson was not content with the deal and was still trying to win the tournament, but in the end Jack Binion persuaded him to soft-play Slim and thus throw the match for publicity reasons.
In the final hand, Pearson raised to 700 chips with 6-6 and Slim called with K♥ J♦. A flop of K-8-8 was seen. Slim pushed his 51,000-chip stack in the pot and Pearson promptly called, both players getting all their chips in the pot. Turn and river were a deuce and an 8 and Slim won with a bigger full house. However, in the end, according to The Hendon Mob, Slim walked away from the table with winnings of mere $15,000, only three times his investment. " was trying right up to the last 30 minutes. That's, they knew. That’s not putting Doyle down – Doyle just wasn’t a talker in those days, and Puggy wouldn’t have been a good choice because about half the people he had screwed over the years were bound to say a few things. So I was the pick for winning it." After winning the tournament, Amarillo Slim was invited to Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show on June 12 the same year. Slim made 10 more appearances on The Tonight Show, an appearance on CBS's Hour, a cameo in the 1974 film California Split, his life story inspired the Kenny Rogers's song The Gambler.
Slim's large media exposure contributed to the recognizance of the World Series of Poker and the popularization of poker in mainstream U. S. media and popular culture. The next year's WSOP was covered over 7,000 newspaper articles were written about it. Time magazine featured an article on Amarillo Slim with rules of poker. Alvarez, Al; the Biggest Game In Town. Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-312-42842-1. Official World Series of Poker site
