Jack Straus - A Chip and a Chair
Every poker player has heard the old adage, ‘a chip and a chair’. This saying holds even truer when playing in a NL Texas Hold’em tournament. Why? Because doubling up your small stack just a couple of times may just put you back into the tournament and a shot at the money, or win it, like Jack “Treetop” Straus did in the 1982 WSOP Main Event.
Jack “Treetop” Straus (1930 - August 1988) was a professional American poker player. He played in the World Series of Poker in the early 70’s and won the 1982 WSOP Main event in 1982, giving him two WSOP bracelets.
Supposedly the poker aphorism, “A chip and a chair”, originated when Jack Strauss won the 1982 WSOP Main Event with a comeback from having only one chip.
The ‘one chip comeback’ did happen, but the story differentiates. The most common story is that he had all his chips in a hand and lost, but as he was getting to leave the table he noticed that he had one $500 chip under a napkin. Because he didn’t declare an all-in, the tournament director allowed him to continue playing and he ended up winning the tournament.
The modern belief was that it happened at the final table, but the 1983 classic book, The Biggest Game in Town suggests that it occurred on the first day of the tournament.
So there you go, you now have an interesting story to tell fellow poker players the next time someone says, ‘A chip and a chair’…
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