A Coversation with Billy Baxter -- Part II

Billy Baxter has been one of the most successful gamblers in Las Vegas for decades. To honor his career Baxter is featured on the cover of the recent issue of Card Player Magazine. The feature story dives into his life as a career gambler and offers advice that Baxter has learned over the years. Baxter sat down with me to breakfast at Commerce Casino one morning to conduct the interview for the article and the stories rolled off his tongue for close to an hour.

The problem with a magazine story is that it is always edited for length, and some good stuff is left out of the final draft. The beauty of the internet is that the pages available are endless. So thanks to that advantage, featured below is the full transcript of the Baxter interview. Due to the length of the transcript it will be released in two parts. This second edition focuses on the advice Baxter has accumulated in his own words.

On the Best Opponent he ever Played Against

RL: Who would you say is the best poker player you ever played against?

BB: I don’t think there’s any question that Doyle Brunson is the best player. You look at his record now, when he is 70 years old, he still plays in the biggest games, he’s still got all of his faculties, he’s still got the balls, he’s got everything. There were a lot of good players; obviously Chip was a good player. Many people would say that Chip is the best all-around player. He played all of the games probably better than anybody. In due respect to him, he was not the best no-limit player.

Guys like Doyle they had something special about no-limit and betting it all. The no-limit player in the big gambling games, I think Fred Farris and Doyle were the best, and Johnny Moss was a great player too. I only saw Moss near the end. But Doyle has said that he is very good, and I know that Doyle knows a good player when he sees one. Moss played with us some. Bobby Baldwin was a very good player as well. I think Doyle was the best though.

On the Profession of Gambling

RL: Since you believe that poker is not a bad profession choice in this day and age, what advice would give to young players coming into the game to become a consistent winner?

BB: One thing I believe you need to do in order to be a successful gambler is to not have any leaks. A lot of people make money but they have leaks. They go into the casino, and they’re young and they like to party. They get into drugs, or whatever their chosen vice may be. Maybe they bet sports, although I have been very successful betting sports all of my life, there are very, very few people that have been able to do that. Betting sports is beatable if you do your homework. The things they need to stay away from are the casino games and the drugs. You have to use proper money management. One thing I’ve seen people do in gambling that I heard an old saying for, is that they eat like a bird, and shit like an elephant. When they win, they win a little bit and then they run and quit. When they finally have their losing session they can’t play long enough and they shoot off everything. Cards are like anything else, you can’t play by the day you have to play by the lifetime.

You have to play as long as the game is good. I never played based on whether I was winning or losing. If the game was good and I was losing most of the time I would keep playing. You have to stay within your bankroll. You have to have an adequate bankroll to play within the limits your playing. That’s probably the best advice, you play when the games are good. Obviously you don’t play your best when you’re stuck so you might consider quitting. You just can’t go for everything in one day. When you win you can’t just jump out and say see you later boys. You’re never going to be very successful like that in my opinion and I see people do it all the time. Some people that are good gamblers, I think that is one of their flaws. They play when they’re losing and they quit when they’re winning, that’s a recipe to go broke.

RL: Do you notice that cycles in the economy have historically affected how much people are willing to gamble?

BB: I don’t think that they’re not willing to gamble as much. A lot of people got beat up in this last stock market downturn. There were a lot of people in this country that had big money and retirement plans, and a lot of that stuff got beat up. The net worth of a lot of people went down a lot. Naturally that makes a lot of people tighten their belts a little bit, or it should. Guys around gambling, that still have money, I don’t see any of them quitting. I think the high-end poker is still really good, I think it’s the middle of the road that kind of took a hit.

On No-Limit Deuce-to-Seven Lowball

RL: Why do you think that deuce-to-seven has failed to grow in popularity in the same way that hold’em has for the general public?

BB: Deuce-to-seven was a game that people never had a chance to learn because it was always played for high stakes, so there was never a training ground. There are just not any low-limit games. There were never any $5-$10 games. The people that played were always more or less the gamblers. It’s the purest form of poker that there is…I’m sure it is. Most people talk about bluffing in no-limit hold’em, and they do some of it, but in no game is there bluffing to the extent that there is in deuce-to-seven. Every hand you play there are antes and blinds and you have to raise to start the pot, you can’t limp in, so there’s a pot, which creates a contest.

If one person is pat, and say you’ve got a 10, and another person draws a card there are two options, bet or give up. If somebody bets you, and you’ve got a 10, they either have you beat or they’re bluffing, and you have to make that decision in each and every hand. If somebody bets you and you throw your hand away every time then obviously they’re going to keep betting. It’s a game where you’re required to make calls with weaker hands, because if you don’t you can’t survive. That’s what makes it so challenging, and you’re faced with that each hand you play. You and your opponent both draw a card, you pair your top card and you say check. Check and your opponent takes it, bet and you’re still trying to win it.

RL: Do you prefer deuce-to-seven because of the bluffs it allows players to make against one another?

BB: I do. I do. It’s actually the biggest bluffing game in poker. A lot of people think people bluff a lot in hold’em. In no-limit deuce-to-seven in every hand either they have it or they don’t, so either they’re bluffing or they’ve got you. We have been playing a lot of it lately; it’s kind of catching back on since they started playing triple draw at the World Series.

On Stu Ungar

RL: What are your memories of Stu Ungar?

BB: Stu Ungar was a great no-limit hold’em player, very good, and he was without a doubt the best gin rummy player that ever lived. He was a great player, but he was not a successful gambler. He had too many vices, leaks. He was sports betting, there were drugs, and this, that and the other, he destroyed his life. I really think in today’s world, if he had been around to see it, he would have made it, because, the problem was that there were so few hold’em tournaments that he was bored. Today, there is so much going on that he would have always had a game. If he had lived to see all of this, I’m sure he would have been OK finally, but he didn’t make it that far.

RL: It is well known that you backed Ungar in his 1997 WSOP main event victory. But is there a common misperception that you backed him for a number of years?

BB: It was a misperception. The reason was that most of the time he had $10,000, he didn’t need anyone to back him. But he had gotten so bad that before I did back him I actually turned him down five times that year. By this time everybody knew that he was on drugs, which was the reason he needed a backer. He wanted me to stake him and I said, “Stuey, please leave me alone.” He came again another day, I said, “Please try to get someone else, please leave me alone.” Then he tells me I’m straight, I’ve been in my room for weeks, I’m really ready to play. He catches me one day when I’m winning so I said, ‘Stuey, alright I’m going to stake you, but if I catch you out of that chair one time I’m going to kill you.”

A few years earlier I had staked him at a big tournament at the Horseshoe with a $10,000 buy in. At the end of the first day he was the chip leader and he was way out in front of everybody. So the next day I get a call from Eric Drache and he asked, “Where’s Billy, were dealing, and he hasn’t shown up.” I said, “Well I know he’s staying at the Golden Nugget.” So I called there and there was no answer at his room. I called security to go check on him and after they did I got a call back from Eric, he said, “They just carried Stuey out of the Nugget on a stretcher, and he’s on his way to the Vegas sunrise hospital.” I said, “Can I come down there and play his stack.” Eric replied, “You know you can’t do that.”

So I get in my car, because I was at home betting sports, and I drive to sunrise hospital. Hs is so little that he is in what looks like a basinet in the hall of the hospital, because they haven’t got a room for him. I go up to the basinet, and I said, “Stuey, Stuey.” This guy with a white robe came up and asked who I was. I said, “Well I’m a friend of his and he is in a poker tournament, he’s got to get out of here.” He replied, “I’ve got bad news for you, we just gave him a shot of something and he isn’t going to be up for a day or two.” He literally got right to the edge of the money; it took them like two days to ante him out. That was my experience prior to that time where he was asking me for the stake in 1997. So that was why I warned him that I’d better not catch him out of his chair.

So I gave him the $10,000 and the rest is history. He actually told me that when it got down to 20 players that, “This tournament is over buddy, I will win it going away.” Sure enough he went on and he did win it. The next year he came back after winning, so naturally you can’t turn a guy down that just won, so I put him in the tournament. He had been resting in the hotel for weeks and I kept telling him why don’t you come down and I can put you in a cheap game to warm up a little. By the day of the tournament he wouldn’t come down. I said, “Stuey if you don’t come down in time to start on time I’m going to take my money back.” He had been resting for weeks at this point, and he said, “I’m too tired to play, just take the money out.” That’s when I knew that something bad was going to happen to him, a guy that can’t come down to play a stake, something is really wrong. Three months later he was dead.

On Sports Betting

RL: How much work do you put into setting a line for a sporting event? A lot of people don’t realize how much research and work goes into that. What has allowed you to be so successful in sports betting?

BB: Years ago I did a lot more work than I do today, I must confess I’ve gotten lazy, which is the reason why I’m not betting as much as I used to before. I was always a pencil and paper guy before the game. But I also always seemed to have a knack for watching any kind of competition and coming up with the right answer. Whether it was boxing and recognizing talent…I’ve also done a lot of betting on tennis and golf.

There were no halftime lines when I came to Las Vegas; I kind of got that started there. This was way back in the seventies, and you couldn’t bet $5 on halftimes. I found it fascinating that you could watch half of the game and then you could make your bet. The casino doesn’t have that long to prepare, they can’t talk to 9,000 people, they have to make their line on the spot. It makes it so the player has a really good chance to win if he has a good opinion. I think that is where the skill comes in, if you do have a good eye for the game. Betting halftimes was one of my main things also.

RL: How much of your skill as a sports bettor come from your ability to read the body language of players in a game during the first half and make a bet based on that information for the second half? Does that ability to read players psychologically really help when you’re betting on athletes in individual sports like boxing?

BB: I think so, that’s what I’ve been best at. The first fighter I managed was Roger Mayweather. He was just a skinny kid that came to town. I saw him in the gym one day, and the only reason I was in the gym back in those days was so I could watch guys workout and decide who I was going to bet on. I saw him and decided that he could really fight. I took him and put him on a fast track. He actually fought for the world championship after 13 fights, which is very unusual.

You usually have to have 25-30 fights before that happens. I saw that he had the talent and there was nothing to wait on. He could beat anyone out and he did, he won the world championship in his 14th fight. I had other boxers that became world champions. I had Bruce Curry and I had Vernon Morris, who beat Shane Mosley twice. So I had a lot of very good fighters, and I attribute that to my recognition of talent, and that carries over to the sports. It’s just something that comes naturally. In poker you’ve got to take in all of the information. I think a lot of that is gut feeling and that becomes more successful with experience.

RL: What is the most money you have ever won on a sports bet?

BB: $400,000-$500,000. I was never a one-game bettor. I was a plodder so to speak, that was what my success was built around, that and the fact that I managed my money. Depending on how you’re doing you bet $70,000-$80,000 a game, in that range, or if you’re doing badly you go down to $50,000 or $30,000. You manage things. If you’re winning you bet an extra $20,000 along the way. It’s a long race because there are so many games. If you find that one game you’re really confident about you bet a little extra but it’s just another ball game. It’s not like this is it, this can’t lose. I never felt like you couldn’t lose. I have seen too many locks go into the shit house.

RL: You are considered a great gambler as well as a great poker player in the fact that you are a very profitable sports bettor among other things. Do you consider yourself a gambler first, or a poker player?

BB: I’ve always been what I would call an all-around gambler, because whatever was going on is what I did. Whether it was sports or poker, whatever…I always like to compete and poker has come back now. I quit for many years just because I couldn’t stand the smoke. But then they made everybody quit smoking, and it’s gotten popular so there’s a lot of money around now. So I came back and I enjoy playing. It’s kind of like going to the golf course for me; I get to hang out with the boys. That’s what I’ve been doing this summer; I haven’t made any baseball bets, I just kind of took off and played a little poker. I have got another week until football starts and then poker won’t see me for about six months.