Ok so we have all heard the story of the 5 month marathon between Nick The Greek Dandalos and Johnny Moss.

For those of you that haven't the summary is this:

In 1949, Moss played with Nick the Greek in a five month long "heads up" poker marathon set up by Benny Binion, winning between $2 and $4 million. At the conclusion of the game, Nick the Greek uttered what has become one of the most famous poker quotes ever: "Mr. Moss, I have to let you go."

Supposedly they only took breaks for naps and some food. Anyway I have always believed this story to be based in total fact. I would still like to believe it is. However apparently a new book is coming out that refutes the claim.
The book is called "Showgirl Stories" and is written by Steven Fischer who claims the game never took place at all.

I cannot figure out when this book comes out or if it already is. All I know is I am curious what everyone else thinks?

_________________
Check out My Blog "In The Grind" Here On AVP!
~ Jay "The Downtown Rounder"

I've heard it both ways, so not really sure what to believe. I would be interested to know what sources he cites.

I've heard it both ways as well, but I'm not sure if I've ever read accounts from people like Doyle Brunson or Jack Binion. They seem like they'd have the best connections to the situation, or at least have known those who may have been around for first-hand information regarding the "match." Would be interesting to hear from them on the topic.

Doyle would have been about 16 at the time and, according to his book According to Doyle, more interested in basketball than poker. Also, from the same book, Doyle didn't spend much time in Vegas until the mid to late 60s.

That said, he may have some very good second-hand information to share.

Exactly, which is why:

At any rate it would be interesting to hear from the old timers, which hopefully will happen if and/or when this book comes out...

There was an article on this subject in one of the poker mags that came out in the last year. I don't know if it was an excerpt from this book or not, for some reason I was thinking it was from a new McManus poker history book. I can't find an online version of the article at the moment and don't keep the magazine back issues after I've read them. The fact that there appears to be no surviving print coverage of such a major event is significant, and, as a 2+2 poster has pointed out, the timeline doesn't add up (Horseshoe opening date, Binion's licensing issues, etc) either. Personally, I'm skeptical, but it was well before my time, and I'm not curious enough to do the library legwork, so I'll probably never know for sure (and I'm fine with that).

_________________
Q: What's the difference between an ass kisser and a brown noser?
A: Depth perception.

I remember reading an argument as well that it never happened, but I can't remember where...could our resident storyteller SAM o'connor shed some light on this????

_________________
"I've got a pair of spades, and one of them is the ace of diamonds." -Drunk home-game buddy

I'd like to think it did

In his book Positively Fifth Street: Murderers, Cheetahs, and Binion's World Series of Poker, author James McManus describes the event on pages 48-49. Find the text in Google Books,http://www.books.google.com. The bibliography of sources is not present, I'll have to pop down to my public library to check that for possible source material. The Wikipedia article on Johnny Moss, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Moss, cites an article, "The Biggest Game Never Played," Fischer wrote for the December 2009 Poker Pro Magazine as the source for the contention that the event never happened. Poker Pro Magazine has a few articles from that issue their website but that isn't one of them. Fischer apparently argues that the Horseshoe didn't exist at that time, I've read McManus' book (a couple years ago though) and I don't recall him specifically describing that the event took place at the Horseshoe. Maybe David Schwartz at UNLV's Gaming Research Center can speak to it. I'll drop him an email and ask his opinion.

Here is his response: