Damn $600 is a little more than his usual ask of $200 or $300.

I heard a story from guy from Canada back in 2005 or 2006 when I was in Tunica, TJ got him for $300 and wasn't paying him back. I saw him 3 years later at the wsop and I asked him if he got his money.

So the Canada dude saw him at a final table at the wsop a couple years later and went to the table and started yelling that TJ owes him $300 and embarrassing him. So TJ paid him back.

I guess it takes doing something like that to get your money back from him.

I busted him in in back-to-back events at Borgata one year, including busting him from the main right before dinner break. I’d played with him a bunch in tourneys and he knew folks I knew and he was well known at the time.

Didn’t know his rep about craps, he asked while I was talking to some friends ready to go for dinner. Didn’t think about it, gave him the money.

Second he went upstairs one of my friends, an established tourney pro at time, broke out into laughter and told me I’d never see it again. Said I’d officially broken my cherry.

I brought it up once at next event but never pursued it after that, or cared. It was a different time. Money was passed back and forth fairly freely cause games were basically printing presses back then.

True on the money being passed around. During the early years of the Moneymaker boom I remember during the Foxwoods Poker Finals there were so many rich guys wanting to try out poker I guess for the first time. They were loaning out so much money to random players just because they played with them in a single table satellite. I remember 1 guy with this flashy expensive diamond watch. He was getting hit up for money left and right by players and I'm not even joking, he must have given out close to $10,000. To complete strangers!!

It was a weird time back then. Gotta wonder if TJ is still asking for money now. At 82 years old.

Nice work.

Not for nothing, but when you go through that Hendon Mob page, there are pretty much as many three-figure buy-ins as there are four- and five-figure entries. And granted, a $200+30 buy-in at the Gold Coast in 1993 is larger in real dollars than the $345 at TCH last weekend.

But let's not make it like Cloutier was some super high-roller back in the Reagan Administration but now he's slumming it with buy-ins that don't pay for a decent gaming console. It's clear he's been grinding this type of event for decades. This is not some massive fall from grace like EastCoastBalla thinks, it's just what Cookier has done for the entirety of his recorded tourney history.

Also...

TJ: "I wake up every day with a new attitude. Yesterday's gone, so I'm not gonna worry about yesterday, just go on to the next day. How can anybody who has won $11 million in poker and lost about $3 million in craps worry about what happened yesterday?"
Gavin Smith: "Okay, I'll take slightly the under and way the over."

[PokerRoad Radio, March 1, 2008]

In Spring 2014 a buddy and I were grinding @ WinStar for about three weeks. I saw TJ every day, and, every day, he was in the $40 Daily, as well as perpetually draped in some form of Taco Mayo gear. Always assumed they were staking the 40-ball.

Dude is a bum. Was a fixture at Choctaw in Durant back in the day and would beg regs for cash when he went busto. Never heard anything good about his repayment plans. He even asked me one time for $200 when I was cashing out at the cage and said "You see me here all the time and know who I am". At first, I was flattered to be asked, but I don't let people borrow money for gambling.

I can tell it again...

He was literally walking from table to table asking people to stake him in the WSOPc main at Choctaw back in 2014 or 15. I watched him work almost the whole room.

Probably 10-15 years ago, he was still a big name and could get some suckers to lend him money.

I don't know if he can't beat the games and/or blows his money on craps, etc. Not sure why he couldn't grind $400 tournament, some cash games, or something.

His books were the only tournament books until like 2004, and were just terrible. Real OMC style, don't play suited connectors much, don't bluff much. I don't know if he believed it, his coauthor wrote it, or it was intentionally bad advice. I guess you could get away with it then. The good players probably didn't need to make money from books, and didn't want to give away information.

He said reraises should be AA/KK only. However, he doubled someone up at the 2000 WSOP ME final table 3-betting, cbetting, and shoving the turn on a 5247 board and got called down by AK high.

Why the bump?

My TJ story. I sat next to him in a 2K tourney at the Bellagio, part of the Diamond Poker Classic. This was about 15 years ago. He was friendly as could be. Just before the break he says to me, "My buddy is bringing me some money a little later. Can you loan me 300 until then?" This is the first time I ever met him and he is asking me for money. I told him to wait until after the break. I go in the restroom and who do I see but my friend from L.A., Men Nguyen. I tell Men about TJ and he laughs, "If you give him any money it will be gone!" So now I go back to the table and TJ is waiting for me. I tell him I can't loan him any money. He makes a face and never says a word to me again. So much for our budding friendship.

I thought he was playing now

Ha how bad is it when an all time scumbag cheater piece of human bile like Men Nguyen correctly tells someone not to lend you money. Nice job TJ Cloudier!

Hasn't he playing cheap daily tournies in Dallas. OK area?

Yeah, I would think he could grind $300 or whatever tournaments, but probably not $10Ks these days.

Sounds like he would make people think they had made friends with this famous player and then ask for $300, which supposedly would be repayed in a few hours.