Go ahead and ask

No.

I have talked about this in a couple of podcast interviews that I have done. The best one of these discussions was done with Joey Ingram. Perhaps someone can find it and put up the link.

You could start your own AMA Mason instead of hijacking this one.

Thank you Mat. I have found his participation insightful and helpful.

Wishing nothing but the best for you Mat. 👍

Did you know about the (for legal purposes, alleged) abortion?

I don't think so. Tell the story if you like.

There was pretty much nobody that I think he was purely friends with. I was the closest thing, probably. And I hardly saw him. He had one close friend that died many years ago. And there were a fair number of people who I'm sure would have liked to hang out with him socially. But I never got the impression he was interested.

Not here. I can tell you privately if you care to know. I was only curious because I was never able to really get a good sense of where you stood on things. David used to talk to you on speakerphone in front of me and Sue fairly often. He would just answer and shush us.. I think from hearing those conversations I always considered you a “co-conspirator”, if you will. I’m glad you didn’t know.

In my experience with David, he was quite skilled at compartmentalizing his relationships with people. I only ever knew what he wanted me to know about how he interacted with others.

My memory is that the video is good but pretty basic?

Mat, from all my reading over the years, it seems the two “big name” players David really respected were Doyle & Bobby Baldwin. Is that true, and were the others he may have mentioned, like Stu Ungar, Billy Baxter, Jack Keller, or Berry Johnston?

this is exactly the type of question best answered by Mason. i don't know the answer, though i do recall him mentioning Chip Reese.

Chip, Doyle and Bobby is good judgement IMO.

I know he thought highly of Chip and Doyle, but didn't have an opinion (that I know of) of the others mentioned.

Whenever you see discussion of the early pre boom days, there's inevitably a lot of talk of cheating. With some notable players like Chip and Doyle often getting accusations of being at best colluders and at worst mechanics and card markets. Did you father suspect there was a lot of cheating by any of those guys or in the high stakes games during that time in general?

He suspected cheating in many circumstances, including these days, especially as stakes got higher. But he was also paranoid. He didn't talk much about it with me. Actually, as I do this thread I'm realizing I hardly knew him at all.

Cheating is another topic he may have discussed more with Mason.

did he die basically broke? sad if true.

it is an unfortunate fact. his life was basically a Greek tragedy.

its crazy how many legends of poker die broke, coming up bobby hoff was the crusher of crushers in my life i wouldn't have guessed he would have been begging for micro stakes buy ins at the end....but there he was. the gambling lifestyle is brutal on the mind and body.

Part of the reason for this is that these people tend to lose their money on other bad investments, and not in poker, or foolishly waste it in other ways.

Do you sometimes bet sports? How many poker players who were winners at poker did you know who lost all their poker winnings at sports?

sports, pit games, drugs, poker games far above their rolls, "balla" lifestyle, working girls or all of the above trap so many winning poker players. but david seemed to not have these leaks other than working girls, he even diversified away from poker well. strange to hear he blew it all.

I played with Bobby and that crew a lot back in the day, and Bobby was a crusher for sure. Carl McKelvey told me Bobby had a stroke in LA and was never the same after it. Of course Bobby had done a lot of coke which might have led to the stroke.

I would suppose life long poker players are some version of degen gamblers. The ones that are not that move on to some other career. Perhaps the question is how do poker players tend to finish in their legititmate investments?

this might be a question for the lodge owners.

Based on interviews of Billy Baxter Chip was for a time controlled by Johnny Spilotro, who was renowned for fixing multiple card rooms in LV.

Now there's the name of a guy who walked on absolutely everything...