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\tBy DAVID SCHOEN
\n\tLAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
\n\tJohn Morgan refuses to tell anyone what he had.<\/p>\n
\tHe even joked that a former president of the United States wouldn\u2019t be able to get it out of him.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cIf I\u2019m not going to tell Bill Clinton,\u201d Morgan said, \u201cI\u2019m not going to tell anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tTwo years ago, Morgan was a central figure in one of the most famous hands in World Series of Poker history, and the 73-year-old businessman from Minneapolis can hardly sit at a poker table these days without being asked it.<\/p>\n
\tAt 1 p.m. today, Morgan will participate in the $1 million buy-in Big One for One Drop tournament at the Rio Convention Center, and despite his reluctance to discuss it, the subject is almost certain to be brought up again.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cI\u2019d just assume it go away and not be known as the guy that got the guy to fold the quad eights anymore,\u201d Morgan said. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of history. Let\u2019s hope that I don\u2019t get involved in that kind of hand again this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tOn the first day of the inaugural Big One event, Morgan went heads-up after the flop (jack-eight-seven) with Mikhail Smirnov of Russia. The turn card \u2014 the eight of spades \u2014 put three spades on the board, and Morgan immediately called Smirnov\u2019s bet, according to several accounts of the hand.<\/p>\n
\tWhen the river card (king of spades) was dealt, Morgan re-raised Smirnov all-in for 3.4 million tournament chips. Smirnov, who was holding pocket eights for quads, thought for several minutes before folding and showed his hand in the process.<\/p>\n
\tOnly Morgan, who busted out of the tournament the next day in 29th place, knows whether he was holding the nine-10 of spades for the straight flush.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cAt the end of any hand, when a guy lays something down, people say, \u2018Good fold.\u2019 That\u2019s basically the thing I\u2019ve said,\u201d Morgan said. \u201cThat doesn\u2019t mean it really was a good fold. It could have been either way.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cBut I didn\u2019t put him on quad eights.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tAs word of the hand spread, it quickly became the No. 1 trend on Twitter, and Morgan said he is asked about it whenever he plays at local casinos in Minnesota. The subject even came up during Clinton\u2019s Global Initiative charity tournament, though Morgan said the former president never personally inquired.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWe\u2019ve had a lot of jokes about it where I\u2019ll say to my friend, \u2018OK, I\u2019m going to tell you. I didn\u2019t have anything.\u2019 And they go, \u2018That\u2019s not right,\u2019\u2005\u201d Morgan said. \u201cIt\u2019s poker. If I told you the truth, you wouldn\u2019t believe me anyway. I can truthfully say there isn\u2019t anybody that really knows what I had.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tMorgan is one of several businessmen and poker pros set to play in the Big One tournament. The event benefits the One Drop Foundation, which provides access to clean water in disadvantaged, rural and semi-rural regions of Latin America, West Africa and Asia.<\/p>\n
\tThe tournament, which will be televised by ESPN, is capped at 56 players, and there were 41 entrants as of Saturday afternoon, according to WSOP officials. If every seat is sold, the winner would take home in excess of $20 million, the richest prize in poker history.<\/p>\n
\tMorgan, the CEO of Winmark Corp., grew up in a lower-class section of north Omaha, Neb., and is heavily involved in several social-justice causes. He is the founder of the University of Nebraska-Omaha\u2019s Transformation Project, a re-entry program that educates prison inmates about the life of Malcolm X, and formerly sat on the national board of the nonprofit Girls Inc.<\/p>\n
\tMorgan was an avid runner into his 50s and completed more than 30 marathons before he said his hips gave out. Now, poker is his primary hobby, and he plays in tournaments with buy-ins as small as $100 in addition to high-stakes events such as the Big One for One Drop.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cI have a little different motivation than most people trying to do it for a living,\u201d Morgan said. \u201cI like to mix it up and have a good time at the poker table. To me, it\u2019s a great release.\u201d<\/p>\n
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By DAVID SCHOEN LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL John Morgan refuses to tell anyone what he had. He even joked that a former president of the United States wouldn\u2019t be able to get it out of him. \u201cIf I\u2019m not going to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7579\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}