After yesterday’s blog entry featuring some famous quotes I decided to look a little deeper into the man behind the name, Amarillo Slim Preston, and it has to said, this guy is one helluva character. No surprises then to discover that there have been plans for a film to made about his eccentric and colorful life, starring Nicholas Cage, for several years now. The last I heard it was going to be released end of 2009- hmm.
Notoriously awesome things that Amarillo Slim did:
- Beat Minnesota Fats at pool with a broom
- Won $300.000 from country music legend Willie Nelson playing dominoes
- Played poker with presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon
- Played poker with drug lords Pablo Escobar and Jimmy Chagra
- Played a highly publicized poker game with porn king Larry Flynt. Mr. Flynt lost a $1,700,000- yowza!
- Wagered that a cat could pick up a Coke bottle.
- Rafted down the River of No Return in winter in a wetsuit made by Jacques Cousteau–a bet that earned me $31,000 from Jimmy “the Greek” Snyder.
- Rode a camel through Casino El Mamounia in Marrakesh, Morrocco
- Bet a prominent politician that George W. Bush would win the 2000 Presidential election.
- Won 5 WSOP bracelets, including the main event in 1972
You can’t beat that.
Amarillo Slims Famous Quotes
“Poker is a game of people… It’s not the hand I hold, it’s the people that I play with.”
“Look around the table. If you don’t see a sucker, get up, because you’re the sucker.”
“They anticipate losing when they sit down and I try my darndest not to disappoint one of them.”
“I never go looking for a sucker. I look for a Champion and make a sucker of him.”
“The population in Amarillo has stayed the same over the last fifty years. Every time some woman gets pregnant, some man leaves town.”
“It never hurts for potential opponents to think you’re more than a little stupid and can hardly count all the money in your hip pocket, much less hold on to it..”