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TJ Cloutier Shares Tales from the Poker Trail.
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| John Bonetti and Mark Napolitano at the'05 WSOP | |
John Bonetti was a poker legend whose style of play was ahead of the times. He rubbed some people the wrong way because he was so gruff at times, but he was a good man and a close friend of mine. He is sorely missed by a lot of us who've been on the poker circuit for the past 20 years or more.
John was in his 50s before he started playing poker in Houston, where he retired after spending most of his life in Brooklyn. He picked up hold'em like he was born to play it, and won quite a few tournaments "in the day." In fact he finished third to Jim Bechtel at the WSOP championship table in 1993. He went out on a controversial play that cost him at least second place and maybe first, and is still being talked about today.
It's just too bad that when the big poker boom started, Bonetti became a forgotten man. He didn't deserve to be among the forgotten, but that's what happened. He talked to me about it quite often, wanting to know why none of the poker sites had called on him. I think it was just a question of age, and we both understood that. John had also been sick for quite a while, and had been in and out of the poker picture because of his health. He had prostate cancer that had metastasized to other parts of his body, went through radiation and chemotherapy, and went into remission for quite a while. John actually wound up outdrawing death for over 10 years.
John started doing real well in hold'em tournaments, and won the main event at Foxwoods and other big events. Within a few years, he had become Barbara Enright's backer. Then with his added success, Bonetti himself was put into some tournaments by none other than Phil Hellmuth. In fact, he won enough money with Phil to pay for Phil's house in Palo Alto, Calif. So, when Bonetti and I would visit Phil at his home, we'd joke, "Well, here's your house, John!"
John played a style of poker that was ahead of the times-he was playing very aggressive poker before anybody else did. He was Mr. Super-Aggressive. At the time, he wasn't a great player but he won a lot because of his extreme aggressiveness in an era when there weren't many aggressive players. In fact, in the first edition of my book on no-limit hold'em, I mentioned Bonetti as an example of a player who constantly puts the pressure on his opponents.
One of John's last claims to tournament fame was three years ago when he and I played at the final table of the $5,000 no-limit hold'em tournament at the WSOP. We joked about the dinosaurs going up against the new kids on the block, and generally had a good time playing together, which ESPN featured on their videotape. Earlier in the event, Bonetti had taken a K-J against a Q-Q for all his money when we were down to three tables. Winning that pot propelled him to the final table. Then when we got down to three-handed play, I had Q-Q and he had A-K, we got all the money in, and my queens held up. (I went on to win it heads-up against Steven Zoine.)
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| John Bonetti at the '06 WSOP | |
Bonetti and I used to meet at the racetrack whenever I went to Houston, where he lived. We both liked betting the horses. One time when John and I were playing a tournament in Los Angeles, we got a limo to take us to Santa Anita racetrack. There were John and me and Philly the Brush, as he was known because he was kinda connected in the old days. Philly's the guy who looked after Stu Ungar for a lot of years because he had promised Stuey's dad that he'd look out for Stuey after the old man died. Anyway, I was seated between the two of them in the back of the limo, and really enjoyed just listening to them speak in that Brooklyn accent of theirs. They both were from Brooklyn originally and they talked about all the old days there. I just got a real kick out of them.
John is the only man that I ever saw get a penalty in a tournament when we weren't playing. While we were on a break, he got after the tournament director so bad using as many swear words as he could fit in, he got a 20-minute penalty during the break! He also got more penalties than anybody in the history of tournament poker-but he probably talked himself out of maybe 20 times as many penalties as he got.
Bonetti enjoyed playing poker so much, he wanted to share his enthusiasm with other retirees. He actually started writing a book (with the help of Max Shapiro) to help seniors get started, telling them how playing poker would sharpen their wits and keep them from betting bored and give them a non-physical way to compete. He loved the poker world, and he wanted to give something back to it.
John added a lot of color to the poker scene-and that's one of the things I miss most about him and the old days of poker. Everybody just seems to be cut from the same mold these days, whereas the personalities of the old timers were so colorful. They were all distinctive individuals who prided themselves on their own special styles. Of course, they all had to learn poker by the seat of their pants, just like Bonetti did, without all the modern "learning tools" available to new players today.
Till next time, this is TJ remembering good times with John Bonetti ... signing off from Texas to the world.
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