David “Chip” Reese’s introduction to the high-stakes poker world is an interesting one. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1973 and planned to pursue graduate studies at Stanford.
On the way out west, Chip stopped over in Las Vegas with $400 in his pocket. He sat down in a $20-limit Seven Card Stud game with it and kept winning. At the end of that summer he won a $500 buy-in stud tournament at the Sahara for about $40,000, and by then his $400 had become more than $50,000. He never made it to Stanford.
Reese stopped in Las Vegas on the way to Stanford with $400 in his pocket. By the end of that summer it was more than $50,000, and he never got to grad school. Stanford’s loss was poker’s gain.
Never Looking Back
In the mid-’70s poker players weren’t as well-regarded as they are today, and they certainly weren’t treated like sports celebrities. Chip’s parents didn’t approve of his decision to skip Stanford for the poker tables and kept mailing him checks to support himself — checks he no longer needed.
Chip Reese is a name many of today’s TV poker viewers don’t know, simply because he seldom turned up at the big televised tournaments.
He played the occasional World Poker Tour event and won three WSOP bracelets, including the inaugural H.O.R.S.E. event in 2006, but he was first and foremost a high-stakes cash game specialist.
Most modern poker fans have never heard of Chip Reese because he rarely played televised tournaments. His fortune was built in private cash games against the best players in the world — games with no cameras, no audience, and stakes that would make most professionals physically ill.
The Greatest Cash Game Player
Reese used to play in some of the largest cash games in the world with the likes of Doyle Brunson, Bobby Baldwin, and Phil Ivey. While it is difficult to measure exact winnings over time in these games, many believe Chip Reese won more money playing poker than anyone.
“There is no one I won’t play if the conditions are right.”
Chip Reese
He truly lived what he preached. It wasn’t at all uncommon for Chip and another of the high stakes regulars to start the game heads-up, waiting for others to join.
Although he didn’t necessarily believe he had an edge over his first opponent, he knew that the only way to get action was to give action, and starting the games was an essential part of making money.
Chip Reese had strong opinions about players who wouldn’t take a seat unless the conditions were just right. In his view, those guys had cost themselves a fortune over the course of their careers.
He would start heads-up against anyone just to get the game going, knowing that weaker players would eventually sit down — a mindset that most risk-averse pros couldn’t stomach.
Legacy
Of course, Reese was an excellent No-Limit Hold’em player, but Doyle Brunson also called him the best Seven Card Stud player in the world.
In fact, Doyle commissioned him to write the Seven Card Stud section of his now-legendary Super System, which contained poker strategy chapters written by some of the top names in poker at the time — a formula Brunson repeated a quarter-century later in Super System 2.
In 1991, at 40, Chip was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame — the youngest living player the Hall had ever inducted. The Hall later made 40 the minimum age for nominees, a rule now known as the Chip Reese Rule. Daniel Negreanu (2014) and Phil Ivey (2017) each went in the year they turned 40.
Doyle Brunson called Chip Reese the best Seven Card Stud player in the world and personally commissioned him to write the Stud chapter in Super System. When the godfather of poker singles you out as the best at something, the debate is over.
A Life Cut Short
Chip Reese passed away on December 4, 2007, at the age of 56. ESPN’s report of his death said he had called his doctor the night before with pneumonia symptoms, never went to a hospital, and died in his sleep at home — and just like that, the poker world lost one of its great legends. He will always be remembered by the fans, but perhaps even more by his fellow players.
He hit his peak just as the poker boom was getting started, so the wider audience only caught a glimpse of one of the game’s great minds.
Players who knew Reese, like Doyle Brunson and Barry Greenstein, have nothing but praise for his talent and his character. Brunson, who knew him for 35 years, put it flatly the day he died: “He’s certainly the best poker player that ever lived.” Greenstein’s line was that Chip was the top dog in the cash games for over 30 years — and that “when it comes to respect, Chip was number one.”
One of the amazing things about him was his ability to quit, even when stuck, when something mattered more.
The story goes that Reese left a cash game while stuck hundreds of thousands of dollars because he wanted to watch his son play ball. The exact number changes with the teller; the point never does. He could always win the money back. He couldn’t get the moment back. That’s who Chip Reese was.
Chip Reese was poker’s greatest what-if. He reached his peak just as the poker boom was beginning, so fans never got to watch one of the most gifted players in history on the modern stage. The men who sat across from him for decades saw it up close: Brunson called him the best poker player who ever lived, and Greenstein called him the top dog of the cash games for 30 years and number one in respect.