Give a raise...
...for David "Chip" Reese '73, poker player par excellence and one of a kind, the stuff of legends real and imaginary. Because, when you get right down to it, with Chip (a.k.a. "The Dipper"), truth tends to blend into fiction and back again. So believe what you want and reject what seems apocryphal and maybe you'll have it right.
Sports Illustrated looked at Chip a while back, and Newsweek, too. Then, just a few issues ago, U.S. News & World Report ran a feature article on how the persona of a high-stakes poker player today is quite different from that of the typical cigar-chomping old timer. Nowadays the big winners frequently are college graduates, maybe even with an M.B.A. Said U.S. News:
"Among the new stars is Chip Reese a Dartmouth graduate widely regarded as today's best all-around poker player. Sidetracked in Las Vegas on his way to law school, he has lived there since 1974, prospered and retained his Ivy League accent and manners."
It all started in Dayton, Ohio, when David was five and had a bout with rheumatic fever. He had to stay home, so his mother taught him games, including poker. He got bigger and stronger a lot bigger and strongerand at Centerville High was elected captain of the football, wrestling, and golf teams. He graduated summa cum laude and went off to Dartmouth. There he was elected to the College Committee on Standing and Conduct, became an economics major, joined Beta Theta Pi, and danced in an Interfraternity Play production, not necessarily in that order. Somewhere along about here he picked up the nickname The Dipper. He also picked up just about every pot at the Beta poker table. He cleaned out one economics prof and an entire roller derby team that was visiting in the Upper Valley. Supposedly he underwrote his Ivy League education by knowing when to bluff and when to fold but the reality is his father was president of a realty firm back home.
After graduation Chip tried a little real estate work himself in Ohio, then in Arizona. But on a fateful vacation in Vegas he turned $400 into upward mobility. Overnight he was taking home a dime a day (that's $1,000 if you're not into high rolling), though there were probably some off days, too. Within four years he had a championship in the World Series of Poker. He's also good enough at card counting to win consistently at 21, and he shoots craps for fun. And profit. He's been known to wager $50,000 or $100,000 on a weight-loss bet (he'd prefer to have his 240 lbs. down around 195, particularly if there's a little vigorish involved). He'll toss nickel ($500) chips at a wall if there's nothing else going on. But let's face it, Chip's his name and poker's his game. You could look it up.
