In his latest book:

Geeking, Grifting and Gambling Through Las Vegas

P. 111

"The cheater I will name is Chip Reese. Actually, he has publicly admitted it. But to my knowledge he has somewhat downplayed it, saying something along the lines of he had to do certain things to be allowed to play the big games without being cheated himself. But it went further than that. I know this for a fact. I was privy to a couple of conversations between him and Mark that made his willingness to cheat clear. And these conversations were approximately during the same time that Chip was cardroom manager of the Dunes. The Dunes cardroom was crooked years earlier, but according to Mark it was worse yet when Chip was in charge. Cold decks, marked cards, etc. Also Chip almost certainly had help."

I heard this nonsense about haters who didn't make it in poker accusing of all the winning players of cheating back then. They said reese, doyle, all these guys, berry greenstein, johnny chan etc. Bunch of nonsense they said all of them cheated. There was even a video done about it. I forgot what it was called. But it was just nonsense. I know a person who battled with chip before and all the old timers many times. And he said sometimes chip lost a lot of money and would run bad so he would quit earlier then he normally did when he ran good. And he said when he left the table you didn't know whether he won or lost his composure never changed. he didn't just win all the time. He said the only time he would not sit at a table is if amirillo slim was playing. He said that all the great players would have bad nights just liike everyone else.

Chip didn't need to cheat he was a very intelligent guy. He was way ahead of the curve. For sports betting he had a guy make software to run 1000s of sims to cover games under different lineups and it would give a percentage of how often each team won or lost in that game. then he would check the odds to see where he got an edge on the point spreads. I am sure he did the same thing for poker to get more precise results for each situation he was in. Guys like this don't have to cheat at poker.

The only guys that I know of were cheating is tony spilatro and his goons. Maybe they were and chip knew but whats he gonna do take on the craziest mob guy in the world? He had to get benny binion to get tony to leave him alone. Tony was taking money from him and other poker players a percentage and benny put an end to it. But chip lost at times like everyone else and would quit and go home. Thats no sign of a cheater.

According to Terry King, Chip's girlfriend in the 1970s, when Chip and Doyle became born again Christians, they never cheated and never allowed anyone who were connected with them, to ever cheat. Here is the entire interview that mentions this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NazdXnXGNRs

Well that settles it since they are born-again. Thanks for the clarification.

This is what I had heard as well

what does it matter anyway? was Chip a perfect saint at all times? eh, probably not..is he the only obvious choice for greatest of all poker playes? yes.

just listened to it.
she also makes it clear they cheated plenty of people before this.

even without hearing this,anyone who doesn't think doyle or chip cheated in the old days is ignorant at best.

When accusations first started surfacing about people cheating online, many people were up in arms back then. Many at first simply refused to believe it.
I'm sure Chip Reece was a great player. I watched as much as I could back when he beat Andy Bloch in that marathon session for the bracelet. But, it doesn't mean he never cheated. I think anybody who could secure any edge back then did.

What bracelet?

I think we should probably discontinue this entire thread. If anyone wanted to call out Chip for cheating they had ample opportunity to do so and for him to defend himself. Seems odd to start a thread with a serious allegation when a man is no longer around to defend or protect his reputation.....

Cheating skills - both offense and defense - were justified and required in the old days due to the fact that gaming establishments were still pre-corporate (Milken, Wynn, Mirage and after). In other words, it was not immoral or unethical to cheat back during the day when the Ant Spilatro and others like him still had major influence. It was the Wild Wild West.

But in the 21st century, cheating was no longer justified, moral, ethical, and a necessity for survival. Anyone who cheated in the 21st century was immoral, unethical, and disgusting. Anyone who cheated pre-Mirage was just being a real pro.

The multi-accounters were cheaters but technically, Puggy Pearson was just no different than someone who was using HUDs.

$50K HORSE

That's a stupid reason. I created this thread so that the other side could be presented. Especially since Sklansky decided to call him a cheat in print, after he was dead, for something he purportedly did 50 years ago. Seems kind of slimy to me, especially since its common knowledge that Reese was one of the classiest guys in the game for a very long time.

There were definitely people who called out Chip as a cheat when he was alive. I don't recall him defending himself then -- though that doesn't mean he didn't. The problem at the time was that some of the people calling him out had their own histories of cheating, so they didn't have an awful lot of credibility. (Yes, I'm thinking of that crazy guy who used to be all over rec.gambling.poker back in the day.)

Anyway, according to the OP, Chip admits to having cheated back in the day, but claims mitigating circumstances. Sklansky says he has direct knowledge of this and Chip admitted same to him. That seems like a perfectly reasonable subject for discussion to me. Unless you believe Sklansky is lying for some reason?

I know Sklansky isn't a big fan of religion, but I've never known him take a position on people who hold religious beliefs. Perhaps thinks it's an intellectual flaw on their part -- but you'd have to be pretty dumb to hate all people who held views that you didn't agree with. You'd be seriously limiting your social opportunities.

I should reword that last statement. Sklansky is not a fan of religion, and doesn't hesitate to ridicule Christianity in the forums here. I shouldn't
say that he's a hater, I don't know that.

My beef with Sklansky's statements in the recent book is that he made no effort to clarify that the cheating was limited to 40-50 years ago, and that
Reese since then was known by all to be a man of character and class.

I believe in the book, Sklansky -does- clarify that he believes Reese stopped cheating after a certain point.

He makes the comment that Reese gave up the dishonesty only because he was able to "sweet-talk" rich amateurs to play with him.

He then he admits he gets irked when Reese is considered one of the greatest players of all time, so Sklansky admits that he has a "chip" on his shoulder in regards to Chip.

so chip was a good player and a cheat , why do some think these are mutually exclusive. .

I think there's only one guy in this thread you need to convince of that. iburydoscocaroaches seems to be a very reasonable, open-minded guy, so it shouldn't be too difficult.

Should we discontinue Skalanskys book too then ?

YES HE CHEATED

In case you guys haven't figured out everyone is guilty. Everyone cheats, everyone is juiced up in sports. Easily 90% of people will cheat if given the chance.

In case you didn't notice rafael Palmeiro tell congress while pointing at them he never cheated, he did. Marion Jones tell the world on camera she never used steriods, she did.

Last TJ Dillashaw vs Cody Garbrant press conference, Cody said TJ tought everyone on Alpha male how to juice, people took it as a joke. But Cody isn't the sharpest guy & literally let his mouth slip up, and was literally telling the truth. Both TJ & Cody are now suspended.

So anyone sitting on Chips Morality lol. He's guilty they all are. Everyone is a little b itch.

The book has already been written and i'm sure like most of his books it has a lot of valuable information and will be a good read. I would never advocate boycotting or being dismissive of ones work (Sklansky's), just because it contained one small section that i would not have put in the book myself. I think it's valid to call out cheaters and there was a time and place for that and i guess some people did broach that subject at that time, however once someone has passed away, i think the correct thing to do is to not continue to bring it up. I say this because they are no longer around to rebut or defend any new, exaggerated or erroneous accusations. Just my personal preference or opinion...

wow, I wasn't aware that back then people were forced to choose a vocation that required cheating.

Like drug king pin classy, or prosperity preacher classy?

10 years from now, when it will be guaranteed to have sunk in and become the norm and standard that using HUDs is cheating, players of the Moneymaker boom will all be remembered as cheaters.

In 2030 moral people will say, "Back in the day - 2008 to 2019 - everyone was a cheater. All these newly inducted people in the Poker Hall of Fame are highly respected today yet they were all cheaters back then. In fact, that's how they have become successful legends." "Cheating was really rampant back then. Poker has come a really long way to exterminate the cheating plague called HUDs."