Who do you think the Greatest Poker Degenerates of all time are? The guys who made millions playing poker and went on to blow all or most of it on crazy gambling binges, insane lifestyle choices and basically an overall degenerate way of life. Here are my choices:
-Stu Unger
-Mike Matusow
-Tom Dwan
-Shawn Sheikhan
-Eric Lindgren
-Gus Hansen
My Mo Ibrahim story. In my very first WSOP tournament I made it to the final table. It was the 2003 2K Limit Hold'em event. When it got down to the final five players Ibrahim had about half the chips in play and the rest of us had nearly equal stacks. We all took a break to discuss a deal. After several minutes of discussion we agreed that Mo would get second money of 145K (First paid 290K) and we would get 100K each. Mo agreed and we were all very happy. Then Huck Seed and Ted Forrest entered the scene. They had staked Mo in the tournament.
Seed and Forrest killed the deal, telling Mo he could beat these four bums (I'm paraphrasing here, but in essence that's what they told him). Play now continues and a few hands later I get QQ and raise. Only Mo in the big blind calls (with 5,7s). The flop comes T,4,8. He checks, I bet and he calls. The turn is a 6 and I end up going broke on the hand. I win 35K but am feeling very disappointed about the 65K I lost.
Forrest and Seed were correct and Mo wins the tournament and the full 290K. A few years later he disappears from the tourney scene. I heard he had returned to his homeland in the Middle East.
420legalize420I would put Paisting on the list
The biggest Degenerate Gambler of all time in the history of las Vegas is Zhenli Ye Gon. He would bet 100k hands 6 hands at a time playing black Jack at the Venetian in the 90s up to about 2007 when he was arrested by interpool for Supplying the Cartels with Senthetic drugs he imported from Asia to South and Central America under the disguise of his pharmacutical Company. He makes Terrance Watanbe look like a low stakes player. he is the guy responsible for that viral picture that surfaced the internet when one of his houses was raided where the entire room was stacked with money from floor to ceiling
he still holds the record to this day for being the biggest better and biggest loser in the history of Las Vegas. He currently sits in Prison being transported from country to country to face charges. You wont hear much about it because all his money was ill gotten gains.
