Posted by Steve Rosenbloom
LAS VEGAS -- The news was not that legendary T.J. Cloutier was named to the Poker Hall of Fame this week.
Nope -- the news was that he hadn't been inducted already.
I mean, come on. The guy owns six World Series of Poker bracelets, has won more than 100 major tournaments, stormed back from near-killer health problems, twice came within a card of winning the main event -- and this guy wasn't already in the Poker Hall of Fame.
Sorry, but I wouldn't dignify a Hall of Fame that wouldn't have Cloutier as a member.
But now I will. Because now Cloutier is in.
"About five years ago, Becky Binion told me I was going to go in,'' Cloutier said of the daughter of Benny Binion, who owns Binion's Horseshoe and instituted the World Series of Poker and Poker Hall of Fame. "But I didn't make it. They put someone else in. Same thing the next year.
"I thought I deserved this about five years ago. Now I'm an old dinosaur and I'm glad to have it.''
And poker -- the Hall of Fame, the World Series, the game itself -- ought to be glad it has Cloutier. You see, it's not just the poker playing that I would consider when looking at the candidates for the Poker Hall of Fame, or any Hall of Fame, really.
I'm about people. I'm about stories. I lean toward being more inclusive than exclusive when it comes to halls of fame because I believe that the more people you induct, the more complete story you tell about the sport or game. Baseball's Hall of Fame, for instance, is largely a statistic-based decision: 500 home runs, 300 wins, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, I know, great players do great things that are quantified in numbers.
But I believe that stories give texture and provide perspective to a greater degree in translating the color of the game -- any game -- and no game has the rich, colorful, nefarious, hilarious, romantic outlaw image of poker, believe me.
Sure, the money and chips determine who wins and loses, but for me, it's the characters with the money and chips -- and those who have neither -- who have given this game its wonderful humanity and depth.
Only Doyle Brunson and Amarillo Slim reckon to bridge the game from it's financially and physically dangerous times in smoky backrooms off dusty roads to its new lemon-scented TV era the way Cloutier can. It's the character that he is and the characters that he has known. It's the back story of the former tight end with the body of a bear who played in the Rose Bowl for Cal in 1959 and then professionally for eight years in the Canadian Football League, and the stories he can tell.
Like the time he slammed into the Canadian tundra, drove his teeth through his lip, came off the field, got stitched up and went back into the game.
And you think you can intimidate him with a check-raise?
Stories make the thing work for me, and Cloutier can tell them, credibility coming in part with that growly voice of his.
Such as the story of the best hand he ever played. I wrote about it in my book, coincidentally called "The Best Hand I Ever Played,'' but I could never write the way Cloutier could tell it.
(Oh yeah, that's right. The books. The many authoritative poker guides that he has written or co-authored about poker. Yet another reason to ask the Poker Hall of Fame people what they were thinking all these years -- if they were thinking at all.)
But anyway, back to the best hand he ever played:
"It was against Al Krux, a cash game at the Bicycle Club about 10 years ago. No-limit hold 'em.
"He hadn't won a pot all day. He had like $445 left or something and he moved all-in. The guy two to his left was getting a massage. He lifted his head up and looked at it and decided not to call and threw it away. The massage girl saw the hand, too.
"It got around to me on the button. I had two 10s and I said, 'Aw, hell, I'll call him because this is his last money and he might not have too much.' So I call him.
"Now, the dealer didn't see that I made the call and she dropped the deck on the muck. That means she had to reshuffle all the cards.
"The flop came K-10-4. I had two 10s. I flopped three 10s. He had two kings, so he had flopped three kings. The fourth card was a 10, so I had four 10s and I beat him in this pot.
"But that's not the kicker. The kicker is, you remember the guy who was looking at his hand and getting a massage? He had the other two 10s and had thrown them away. He told us he had thrown two 10s away, and the massage girl said, 'This guy threw away two 10s.'
"So that meant the dealer had to make a mistake and drop the deck and reshuffle those 10s back in for Al to lose this hand to me. It's the worst beat in the history of poker.
"Needless to say, I never won another hand that night, but I beat him out of his last $445. Story of a lifetime."
Ask him for a story about hitting the road for a game, and he'll give you this:
"I can remember when we were in Texas, there used to be a man named Lee. I'll just use his first name: Lee. He wasn't a very good poker player, but he loved to gamble. And he was an even worse gin player. He had plenty of money, by the way.
"I'd take off at 6 in the morning to try to be the first one there so I could be the one to play him in gin. But by the time I got there, there were already two people ahead of me. It ended up that you'd have to leave the day before if you wanted to be the first one to play him the next day in gin.''
Road gambling stories also tend to be rife with episodes of gunplay or some kind of weaponry at the ready.
"I was at the game where this character -- we'll just call him 'Patch' because he had an eyepatch -- was a known killer,'' Cloutier said. "One time, he just put his gun down on the table and said, 'I'm going to win the next pot.' Everybody knew they weren't going to play the hand if he put money in the pot.
"But there was this old guy who used to drink a lot who was the 1985 World Series of Poker champion, Bill Smith, and he'd get drunk and he played a pot and beat 'Patch' in this pot. And Patch picked up the gun like he was going to do something.
"Then he started laughing and says, "Who could be mad at an old sot like that?'''
Some road gambling stories involve players betting houses, cards, girlfriends -- you know, no-limit in the truest sense.
"I never did that,'' Cloutier said, "but I saw Keith Lear, who has a glass eye, actually pop his eye out and said, 'I'll bet this in this pot.' It wasn't a real bet or anything, but he actually did that.''
As Cloutier related some of these stories on the day of his induction to the Poker Hall of Fame, he is joined by one of his grandchildren, 10-year-old C.J. Cramm. Family, especially youngsters, don't always appreciate the legendary status accorded a grandpa. But let's find out.
C.J., what's the best thing about your grandpa?
"He has a lot of money,'' the kid said.
"A lot of money?'' Cloutier says with a laugh.
"You do,'' C.J. said.
Whatever amount he really does have, Cloutier would have had a lot more but for the turn of some cards -- and all the cards are 9s -- in a story that starts at the final table of the 2000 main event. When Cloutier began heads-up play against Chris "Jesus'' Ferguson, he was facing an 11-1 chip deficit. He began to outplay Ferguson and took the chip lead before giving back enough that he was the one who was covered when he drew A-Q and got all the money in the middle, dominating Ferguson's A-9.
"What a lot of people don't realize is that was the start of what I call my 'triple play,''' Cloutier said. "I had Chris dead to a 9 with one to come and he caught it, which was the key hand in the whole tournament. The very next no-limit tournament I played in, I had a man dead to a 9 with one to come and he caught it and I lost that one heads-up. Then the third one was the last Tournament of Champions they had at the Orleans. We played H.O.E. (rotating rounds of hold 'em, Omaha and Omaha Eight-or-Better) first and then no-limit hold 'em at the end. Brian Saltus and I got heads-up in that one, which was the third tournament in a row for me, and I had him dead to a 9 with one to come and he caught it for a middle-buster straight.''
Back-to-back-to-back bad beats, all with that stinkin' 9. Makes a man want to scream.
"I didn't say a word,'' Cloutier said. "I just stood up and shook their hands and said, 'Nice going' and all that stuff. But it was the difference of about $2 million to me in the three different tournaments.
"But the funny part was, I must've listened in the next six months to 200 bad-beat stories and none of them added up to $2,000.''
"It happens. That's just part of poker.''
Finally, for all of the reasons that Cloutier is a Hall of Famer -- and should've been years ago -- there is one more thing that helps to elevate his legend: He has a hand named after him. That's right up there with Brunson, who's hand is 10-2 because he won back-to-back main events in 1976 and '77 when he used those two hole cards to end each tournament.
Cloutier's hand is J-9 of clubs, a story that stems from yet another story about a cash game and a big pot.
"J-9 of clubs is called 'T.J.' because I flopped a straight flush three times in one year in the same game with J-9,'' Cloutier said. "This happened the first time when we were down to five-handed and it was passed to me on the button and I made it $700 to go. Everett Goolsby was big stuck. So, he called. He called with any two cards when he was stuck and tried to outflop you. It came 7-8-10 of clubs, and I never had to bet a dime. I had about $16,000, $17,000 in front of me and he was in for about $26,000 and had close to the same amount in front of him. He just moved in as the first to act. He had 7-10 offsuit. I'll never forget it. He was absolutely drawing dead because I had the straight flush. That's why my name online is 'J9ofclubs.'''
Cloutier was looking for J-9 of clubs or anything that might work to get him through Sunday's field of more than 2,100 players on Day 1C of the main event.
"It's the same game it was 30 years ago,'' Cloutier said. "It's just that it used to be 10 tables you had to get through. Now it's 200 [on the first day]. The only thing you can control is the table you're at.''
Apparently, Cloutier couldn't control it. He busted out of the main event.
He'll have to settle for busting into the Hall of Fame.
Poker
