“People equated us with being some kind of gangsters or outlaws or something, and all we were doing was playing poker.”īrunson, a two-time World Series of Poker main event champion, credits Slim as “the one that brought respectability to poker.” And Slim loved the limelight “more than anyone I ever knew,” he said. “We got robbed five times, we got arrested a lot of times for playing illegal poker games you got a fine and they’d turn you loose,” he recalled Monday. “One of Slim’s famous quotes was, ‘It wasn’t a matter of beating the game, it was a matter of getting out of there with the money.’ ”īrunson acknowledged that “it was kind of a dangerous time.” “Those were the days when poker was totally underground,” Grossman said. When he saw pool dying out as a way for him to earn a living in the early ‘60s, his son said, he turned his attention to playing cards.įrom 1964 to 1971, Slim joined Doyle Brunson and Brian “Sailor” Roberts in traveling around the Southwest playing poker. He then used the Navy sedan to drive to pool halls, where his exceptional playing earned him a considerable amount of money.Īfter his discharge, he was invited to join Special Services as a civilian to conduct pocket billiards exhibitions at military bases throughout Europe. Stationed on the West Coast, he wangled duty as a chauffeur for a captain - a cushy job that took about an hour each day.

When he turned 17, Slim enlisted in the Navy for three years. 31, 1928, in Johnson, Ark., and his family later moved to Amarillo, which remained his hometown. “He was crushed by the allegations,” said Grossman, “and a lot of people in the poker world shunned him.” His attorney, Robert Templeton, said at the time that the felony charges were dropped because prosecutors could not prove their case. He was sentenced to two years deferred adjudication and fined $4,000 by an Amarillo judge. In 2004, he pleaded guilty to three misdemeanor assault charges in the case. If you don’t see a sucker, get up, because you’re the sucker.”Īmarillo Slim found his reputation tarnished in 2003 when a grand jury indicted him on three felony counts of indecency with a child by contact, accusing him of touching a 12-year-old girl on three occasions earlier that year. He was also highly quotable: “Look around the table. You’d be bored to death.”īunky Preston said his father “always kept the media on their toes. “If there wasn’t any losing, it wouldn’t be any fun. “Anyone that never loses doesn’t do much playing,” he told the New Orleans Times-Picayune in 1994. Losing was always a possibility in gambling, Slim acknowledged, but he didn’t consider losing a bad thing in itself.

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