AMARILLO SLIM: THE GUARDIAN OBITUARY

My obit of Amarillo Slim is up at the Guardian's web site, and will be in Saturday's paper; you can link to it here. It's true what I say about Slim's influence, and thanks to the Poker Professor (I gave him the name, so I ought to use it!) for the great quote.

This wasn't the place for an essay on the progression from Slim and his cohorts, as I describe, to the next generation of players who led the boom and rode it through its massive exposure on satellite TV and of course on the internet. Televised poker went very quickly from something covered almost like a sport (in fact, that's exactly what we tried to do with the World HeadsUp Championships that Pete and I commentated on) with personalties you could sell like sportsmen, to something like televised internet poker, where youngsters in sunglasses and hoodies hide their faces and listen to Ipods while playing the game as if they were online. Not surprisingly, a 21 year old who has spent four years doing nothing but playing poker online is not necessarily the best story nor best interview. I am exaggerating a little, but not that much. So televised poker moved quickly to celebrity-driven shows, which are a whole different thing.

A generation of players, both in the US and Britain, learned from Slim, a built themselves personalties they used to hustle, both players and audiences (and TV commentators!). It is so true that in poker you're battling the person, not the cards. Slim knew that, and knew how to sell it.