If you looked carefully, you would see that he was almost always playing keno at the same time.

Best wishes,
Mason

For a sec there I thought Mason bumped this!

@jaythekid thanks, fun to read this

I played $1-3 stud with Redd Foxx one day, and it must have been about 35 years ago. He was playing every game of Keno. He would pull money out of every pocket, put it back, go back and forth, and finally give the Keno runner his tickets and the cash. You could never really figure out how much he was betting, but it was always more than just a couple of bucks. In fact, playing stud was just a way for him to play Keno.

I was sitting next to him, so after a while I asked him why he played Keno so much, and he told me that the first two times he ever played Keno he hit the big one and he's been addicted ever since.

Later that week I went to see his act, and it was awful. Slappy White opened for him and he was hilarious.

Played with Telly a bunch in the late 80's. Private 50/100 Limit game hosted at a producers house, and occasionally at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Hollywood crowd. Lots of money and but little skill. When Telly showed up, he could always make a good time even better. Like everyone said, he was an average player, but wasn't there to make money. He usually showed up alone, but a few times brought his good buddy Dom Deluise along. Dom was not average, I'm not sure he even knew the rules - but this son of a gun was the luckiest player you've ever seen. No rhyme or reason to his play but always seemed to have the "flow" with him - I'm not sure I ever saw the guy lose! He would always act so surprised when he scooped yet another pot on a runaway straight or a hopeless 2nd pair - and you couldn't be mad at a guy like this!

Norm, Dom and Kaeto

Now I know why that son of a gun was winning so much! He was playing the fool! Never trust an actor

Watched Savalas at the 92 WSOPME. He almost made the final table. They got him to pose for a picture when he cashed. He fanned out the hundred dollar bills and smiled while they took the shot. He came back out later and sat inside the rail watching for awhile. I heard Tuna gave him lessons to improve his game.

You probably have to define 'good' as being era specific.

Increase in poker skill has been an exponential affair. In 1980, knowing incredibly basic stuff that today wouldn't beat online NL100 was enough to (with rational game selection) beat a black chip game (and the old-heads who insist that isn't true and how the game had 'more feel', etc, are delusional. The same guys who got unarguably obsoleted in the 2000s, yapping about the bygone glory days when they could still bull**** themselves)

Valuation fundamentals that Warren Buffett understood (and applied) in the 1950s-1970's that used to require high level accounting skills and tons of effort is now available to anyone on a free stock screener.

Jimi Hendrix was a huge innovator on the electric guitar, but every 11 year old today learns Jimi Henrix songs, first.

The skill curve is an interesting thing. He was probably a 'good celebrity' for his era but now, a poker celebrity has access to training and accumulated knowledge that vastly exceeds what even the best pros knew in Tellys era. This changes the standard.

Relative access to data matters a lot. In the mid 1970's, technology had advanced access to legal data enough that every Federal case, agency ruling, regulation and State Supreme court cases had become available online. By 1985, you could get the SEC filings of every public company in the US on a single CD Each of those breakthroughs made practicing law or finance much more democratic and efficient.

By 2001, online poker hand data was available for study and analysis. The leaps of "poker knowledge" came from vast levels of data and improved distribution models for knowledge gleaned from analysis.

As for poker, there were a few decent statistical books around in the early 1970s, even about NL Holdem, and a few decent books on strategy and game play to layer onto the "maths". It is true that knowing some basic math helped one avoid traps in Seven Stud or limit holdem, but prior to the rise of pot limit and no limit games in popular play, the games you were likely to encounter were simpler and less risky with respect to mistakes.

As late as 1991, it was noteworthy among Las Vegas poker players if some casino was spreading a NL Holdem cash game. Someone might call you up and let you know.

At that point the relative importance of skill exploded and demand for knowledge, needed to survive, grew.

The lag in data and a means of distribution for analysis, were remedied when online poker took off, eventually generating huge improvement in skill across the poker and busting out players who did not adapt.

How good was Telly ? Good enough to enjoy playing his game and, it seems, knowledgable enough about people to help others enjoy theirs as well. Doubt he wore a hoodie and headphones when he played.

No one was online in the 1970's! The "internet" hadn't happened yet!

Sorry, perhaps one of us is mistaken.

Here is what I experienced personally. Lexis Nexis provided online access to the legal materials to my law school from 1977 - 1980.

My guess is that access online was over a telephone connection. I used to get access through a terminal at the school.

See, Lexis Nexis timeline : http://www.lexisnexis.com/anniversar...ne_fulltxt.pdf

"1973: Mead Data Center introduces LEXIS and NAARS services, with Jerry Rubin now at the helm. LEXIS provides the full text of Ohio and New York codes and cases, the U.S. code, and some federal case law. NAARS is the National Automated Accounting Research Service, a tax database from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. 1974: LexisNexis creates and introduces its own private telecommunications network to ensure its customers in large cities had uninterrupted access to its services. •The New York Times Information Bank produces first public access online newspaper abstract and index service. "

"1975: LEXIS service is installed in university law libraries, a marketing breakthrough that insures future generations of lawyers would embrace CALR. •West Publishing, largest publisher of law books and reporters, takes on Mead Data Central with the introduction of the Westlaw online service, providing headnotes of cases only.•300 online public access databases now available commercially, of which the Lexis service is one"

What is the basis for your assertion that "No one was online in the 1970s" ? You think Al Gore invented online access in the 1990s ?

Do you understand that "online access" and the "internet" are not the same thing " ?

Savalas was good friends with Mike Sexton, who was a top poker pro back in the days before his announcing career. Sexton coached Savalas in Hi-Lo split, which was one of the most popular games before Hold-em conquered poker and knocked all the other games off of the tables. Sexton discusses his friendship with Savalas in his book and praises his play.

I agree that there was limited use of internet type communication in a few college law libraries, and by the military in the 1970's. I doubt that obtaining the information you mention was readily available in the 1970's Only a few law libraries had access to this material as you well know. Saying that there was "relative" access to this information is a misnomer imo. Yes, the technology was there but there was very limited access to it, so only a handful of people were availing themselves of this source of information. Unlike in the early 2000's when the internet was becoming far more widespread and poker players could avail themselves of myriads of poker data. By then countless millions of people were "online."

If you are correct that "only a handful of people were availing themselves of this source of information", does that in any way change the point he was making about the leaps in technology, or that you were incorrect in saying that "No one was online in the 1970's"?

Hint:


It's OK to be wrong sometimes. I speak from experience. Let it go.

Sorry Jay, you are still wrong.

I said I had online access to the information as early as 1977. I was describing my online access.

You said "no one" had access, with an exclamation point for emphasis, because the internet had not "happened yet", ..... basically calling me a liar.

I was describing my online access. That was a fact. You said "no one" had such access. Neither you nor I were posting above about whatever you now mean by "relative" access or what millions of people were not doing in the 1970s. I said "me", you had said "no one". Nice try however at backing away from your clearly erroneous claim I am lying.

As Mead Data noted, quoted in my post above, there were over 300 online databases available by that year. I used Mead Data to get online access. You think Mead Data now is also lying about the 1970s ?

I was not alone in the 1970s re online access, along with however many universities or thousands of students or businesses who also had online access to "over 300 data bases" by 1977. That you were unaware and are doubling down now as willfully ignorant of historical facts does not mean that online access was not around in the 1970s.

Maybe you also believe that operating a PC was not possible until Windows was invented ?

(Fwiw, I am well aware of when poker emerged and grew popular on the "internet". I played on Paradise and Planet in 2000, before launching a competing online poker provider in early 2001; a poker operation which has run continually ever since, albeit under different ownership.)

You win, you're right! The internet was going strong in 1977 and everyone was getting information on all kinds of things! My saying "No one" was an exaggeration, but not so much of one. I was aware that the "internet" was created in the 1970's with very limited access. Relatively speaking, no one was using the internet at the time except a small handful of people.

It's not unlike if I said that no one is going to Puerto Vallarta anymore because of the surge in violence there. Of course some people are still going, but the numbers are way down. The fact that some people are still vacationing there makes my comment incorrect, but not my meaning. Do you get my drift now?

Technically you are correct Gzesh, so you win that argument. Congrats!

No argument; you basically called me a liar about what I related I had done in 1977.

I'm not arguing, I said what I did and when I did it. You said, in your ignorance, "no one" could have done that "in the 1970s".

Take your "drift", your "meaning", your comment, and a flashlight and go look for your prostate.

Could have just posted that, it would have been quicker and has the advantage of not being pointlessly argumentative.

Do you actually have a toupee Jay? I’m not sure why I just wondered that...

I am not sure, but I don't think Telly Savalas played much online poker. After all, he died in 1994, and the first real-money online poker was not played until 1998.

Since he was a psychology major in college, rather than in the sciences, and had finished his education decades before, I would consider it unlikely that he was participating in the rudimentary online world of the time. In the early 90's when he died, the home computer had not yet penetrated everyday life to anywhere near the extent it had in the 2000's, only a decade later.

Since Savalas was wealthy, it is not unlikely that he had an Apple Macintosh or a Commodore 64 in the house, nonetheless it is very unlikely he was playing online in the 80's or 90's.

Also, everyone knows that there were remotely accessible data bases available as far back as the early 70's. But to equate using those databases with being "online" in the sense that the term means in 2019 is a misnomer.

Many consider that the internet as we know it was born in 1991, when the first examples of what would be considered modern "websites" or "web pages" were posted on the World Wide Web by researchers at CERN.

Apparently "everyone" did not include Jay.

You get the difference between online access to a remote server and the shared protocols that support/enabled the rise of the internet, (described as "a series of tubes" according to one US Senator.)

Senator Ted Stevens explaining the Internet...

see, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8XSo0etBC4

or

[/url] http://www.cc.com/video-clips/uo1ore...nes---internet

I never said the remote access to data I had in 1977 was the "internet".

Jay was the guy who relied on that false equivalency to call my description of 1977 remote online access impossible, calling me a liar by implication.

I was computer operator in 1987, before Windows was widespread.
I believe the first versions came out in 1985.

I think this was possibly before Jay was probably even born, so let's take it easy on him guys.

At one point, "everyone" knew AOL dial-up WAS the "internet".

Poor baby got his feelings hurt because someone didn't agree with him. Aaaahhh, so sad. At least you get a lot of approval from your friends on here who think you're the cat's meow. Sorry, but I'm not impressed. You're derogatory comments above tell me all I need to know about you - one small man.

Pretty funny that you got called out in post #45 for saying you were "online" in 1977, and you had to deflect his comments by talking about me. Actually I think my original comment in post #34 was more accurate than yours and that's why you got so butt hurt.

We're really going to clog up a great poker thread with wonderful stories with this online/offline/whateverline nonsense. FFS give it a rest.