WSOP 1984: Incredible 3-Max and Jack Keller’s Victory

Start of the Series

The game started on Tuesday, May 1. The first tournament, Event #1: $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em, gathered 234 players and set a new second-place record for the number of participants in the entire history of WSOP. The tournament featured an interesting 3-max that would lead us to the final of this series. In third place was an experienced professional from Austin, Texas—Jesse Alto. He received $23,400 in prizes. Second was Bobby Hoff, already known for his second place in WSOP 1979. The winner of the tournament was Dick Albano, who received $117,000, his only prize in the entire history of WSOP.

On May 2, tournament Event #2: $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em was held, and once again the casino floor was filled with 178 players. In this tournament, the winner was Todd Baur from Nevada. His prize was $133,500, his only prize in the entire history of WSOP.

Event #3: $1,000 Pot-Limit Omaha (Rebuy) gathered 108 players, who additionally made 60 rebuys.

In this tournament, held 40 years ago, legendary players Mike Sexton (fifth place), current champion Tom McEvoy (third place), and David Sklansky (second place) were noted. The winner of this tough 5-max field was Bill Bennett from Hoquiam, Washington. This was not his only prize in the entire history of WSOP. He would finish in the prize money 8 times, including in the 2024 tournament. However, the championship bracelet remained the only one for Bill Bennett, at least until 2024.

On May 4, Event #4: $1,000 Limit Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo saw over a hundred players—120 participants. Notable in the prizes was again Mike Sexton (6th place), and the winner was Norman Berliner. This was his only bracelet and first of 11 prize finishes.

Event #5: $1,000 Limit A-5 Lowball Draw again saw more than a hundred participants. It is worth noting that this had never happened before in WSOP history. At the final table was Jesse Alto (4th place), and the first prize and championship bracelet went to Paul Fontaine. Notably, a year and four days later, Paul would play in the same tournament again but take second place.

Decline in Popularity of Old Poker Variants

On May 6, the first tournament was held that gathered fewer than a hundred participants. This was Event #6: $1,000 Limit Razz, with 80 players. A few years ago, 80 players for any WSOP tournament would have been considered a great success, but in 1984, this showed a decline in the popularity of the Razz game.

The first final table of this tournament was left by Gary Berland from Gardena, California, holder of 5 WSOP bracelets. This was his penultimate prize before his tragic death in 1988.

In the heads-up match, the well-known American professional David Singer from Mamaroneck, New York lost. In 1984, David was not yet a professional player; he worked as an environmental lawyer. He only switched to poker in 1996.

The winner of the tournament was Californian Mike Harthcock, who took home $40,000 in prizes.

The next day, Event #7: $5,000 Limit Seven Card Stud was held with only 55 players. The first prize went to Jack Keller. It was his debut in the WSOP series and an immediate win. In the decisive heads-up, Keller beat Harry Thomas Jr. from Ohio. A year later, Harry would win the same tournament, beating Johnny Moss and Artie Cobb.

Casino Employees Event

And here we come to Event #8: $1,000 Casino Employees No-Limit Hold’em, which some sources do not consider a series tournament despite a separate day allocated in the schedule. Fourteen players participated, and the winner was Sandy Stupak. It is mentioned that Sandy was the daughter of Bob Stupak, owner of Vegas World Hotel and Casino. His casino was closed in 1995 and became part of The Stratosphere Casino.

Sandy was Bob’s wife, formerly Sandra Joyce Wilkinson (later Sandy Blumen). She came to the USA from Melbourne, Australia. Bob and Sandy had two children—Nevada and Summer.

Bob Stupak would win a WSOP bracelet in 1989, five years after his wife.

New Record

After a rest on May 8, life returned to Binion’s Horseshoe casino. Event #9: $1,000 Limit Hold’em was held on May 9 and attracted a record number of players—270. At the final table of this tournament was notable businessman and poker enthusiast Lyle Berman. In 1984, he was 43 years old and worked as CEO in a business that belonged to his father Berman Buckskin but was bought in 1979 by W.R. Grace. A few years later, Berman entered the casino business, became co-founder of Grand Casinos, and eventually entered poker, taking the position of chairman of the board for World Poker Tour.

On May 9, 1984, Berman lost and received only $5,400 in prizes. The victory and $135,000 went to Bobby Martinez. As is customary for winners of such large tournaments, Martinez was a novice and never again reached the WSOP prize zone.

Wins of Dewey Tomko

Event #10: $1,000 Limit Seven Card Stud attracted 132 players. The winner was a player from Florida, Mike Schnieberg. This prize finish became Mike’s second and last in WSOP history.

Event #11: $10,000 No-Limit 2-7 Draw Lowball was conquered by the well-known Dewey Tomko, also from Florida. Dewey worked as a kindergarten teacher, but switching to poker, he became one of the most successful players of his time. Unfortunately for history, Tomko often took second places more than first.

In this tournament, second place was Sam Angel—holder of the 1973 and 1975 bracelets. Sam was a driver for the legendary player Nick ‘The Greek’ Dandolos. He sold gold jewelry to get a bankroll for playing poker and became one of the bright participants of the early years of WSOP. $42,000 for second place in 1984 was his largest prize.

Third in the tournament was Bob Stupak, owner of the casino whose wife had won a bracelet in several tournaments earlier.

Fourth in the tournament was Berry Johnston from Bethany, Oklahoma. Still little known from our historical articles, because by 1984 he had only one bracelet (1983) and one final table appearance in Main Event WSOP 1982 (third place), but in the ’80s, Berry would become one of the most successful players in the Main Event WSOP for the entire decade.

Event #12: $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha (Rebuy) became the least successful tournament in terms of the number of players—only 22 participants. But because, on average, players made more rebuys, the prize pool was $225,000, and the first prize of $135,000 went to Dewey Tomko. In the 3-max, he beat Roger Moore from Maryland and Mickey Appleman from New Jersey.

Ladies Event

The last before the Main Event was a special women’s tournament with the most affordable buy-in in the entire series—Event #13: $500 Ladies Limit Seven Card Stud. The tournament attracted 62 participants, and the winner was Karen Wolfson from Nevada. It was her first experience at WSOP, but in the following years, she twice took second place in the women’s tournament (1995 and 1997).

Karen Wolfson’s opponent was Marsha Waggoner—a professional player from Australia who moved to Las Vegas to play poker. To be more precise, Marsha was a dealer at a casino in Sydney but discovered a talent for Seven Card Stud. She took a plane ticket and moved to Reno, Nevada, where she started playing professionally. Later, she moved to Las Vegas and then California, continuing to play poker professionally. In 2008, Marsha was inducted into the Women in Poker Hall of Fame, and in 2010, the Australian Poker Hall of Fame. From 1997 to 2008, she was in a relationship with player Kenna James. She has three children from a previous marriage, five grandchildren, and she loves to play golf.

WSOP 1984 Results

Final Table

In 1983, the prize money of the 1984 Main Event was distributed among 9 players at the final table. The game successively left Mike Allen, Howard Andrew, Rusty Lepage, Curtis Skinner, Rick Hamil, and David Chew.

Incredible Three-Way Play

In 1984, tournament organizer Jack Binion decided to conduct an experiment: at the 3-max stage, players’ chips were replaced with money. The reason for such an experiment was the long heads-up in 1983, which deterred TV viewers. None of the filming crews that worked at WSOP 1983 returned to work in 1984. Jack decided to make 3-max more spectacular.

In the 3-max game remained: tournament novice Jack Keller, who had already won a bracelet in preliminary tournaments; experienced professional Jesse Alto, for whom this final table of ME WSOP became the first in a consecutive series of three in a row, and overall this was Jesse Alto’s fifth final table at ME; and Byron ‘Cowboy’ Wolford, previously participating in rodeos.

Apparently, Alto and Wolford were acquainted and maintained friendly relations, which played an incredible role at the decisive moment.

Jesse Alto started the game as chip leader and showed aggression. He was the most experienced of the remaining players. In just the final table stage of WSOP, Alto had already played in 1976 (where he took second place) and 1978 (took fifth place).

Jesse controlled the game and was heading towards a confident victory until a large hand, where on the flop were A K 9 . Wolford bet, Alto called, and saw K on the turn. Wolford showed aggression again, Alto called again. On the river 2 , Wolford, now with a stack size tied to the current pot, went all-in. It seemed that the fate of the short stack would be determined by whether the chip leader would call the bluff, but Byron’s behavior was strange. When going all-in, he glanced at his wife and winked at her, then tore apart one of the stacked bundles of bills and scattered them on the table. Jesse Alto paused. It took him about five minutes to make a decision. Then he folded. Byron Wolford revealed 5-3. This was a complete bluff from the beginning.

After this hand, Jesse Alto was on tilt. He went all-in blind in the next two hands and doubled Jack Keller’s stack twice. In the third hand, Jesse Alto went all-in again and was eliminated from the tournament.

Thus, the chip leader, caught in a tough bluff by the novice, was eliminated from the tournament by losing three all-ins in a row. The game moved to heads-up.

Heads-Up

Unlike 1983, this heads-up did not last long. In the decisive duel were two WSOP novices, where Jack Keller was a successful cash game player and showed hyper-aggression.

Byron Wolford was a real cowboy and set a record for calf roping at Madison Square Garden in the 1950s. Later, he would win his WSOP bracelet and write the book “Cowboys, Gamblers & Hustlers: The True Adventures of a Rodeo Champion & Poker Legend,” but in the finale of 1984, he had difficulty dealing with Jack Keller’s aggression.

The end of the game did not take long to wait. On the flop 9 6 5 , Wolford went all-in with a middle pair through pocket 6 4 , and Keller called the bet with pocket pair tens 10 10 .

Poker Odds Calculator gives 78% chances in favor of Keller’s tens.

Turn 8 . Jack’s chances increased to 88%.

River J marks the end. Jack Keller becomes WSOP Champion 1984!

The Winner – Jack Keller

Jack Keller, from Pennsylvania, born in 1942, started playing poker while serving in the United States Air Force. He mainly played Seven Card Stud, so this discipline became Jack’s main one. In tournament poker, Jack debuted in 1983, when he reached the prize money three times in the America’s Cup of Poker series, including winning the first Seven Card Stud tournament, taking third place in the next tournament of the same poker variant, and then playing at the final table of the Limit Hold’em tournament.

His WSOP debut was in 1984 and immediately led him to a gold bracelet in Event #7: $5,000 Limit Seven Card Stud, where Jack received $137,500 in prizes. In the same year, 1974, Jack won the WSOP Main Event and received a record prize of $660,000. His final third WSOP bracelet, Keller won in 1993 in the Limit Omaha tournament. Throughout his career, he won 3 WSOP bracelets and $1,593,645 in prizes.

After his WSOP Main Event victory, Jack went to Europe, where he popularized Pot-Limit Omaha.

In addition to success in the WSOP series, Jack won the main tournament of the Super Bowl of Poker (SBOP) twice, a series organized by Amarillo Slim. At that time, the series competed in popularity with the well-known WSOP.

Jack was known in his time as “Gentleman Jack,” but he got his nickname not at the poker table, but from journalists while working at the Chicago options stock market. In poker, his nickname was “Murderous” due to aggressive play, and sometimes too aggressive. The nickname was given to him by Seymour Leibowitz during a cash game.

His style involved pot-sized bets. It is said that his personal credo was “never bet less than the maximum.”

During his career, player Jack Keller won $3,900,424 in prizes. He was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 1994.

In the last years of his life, Jack lived in Tunica, Mississippi, where he owned pawnshops and spent his free time playing Pot-Limit Omaha. Jack died on December 5, 2003, at the age of 60.

Jack had three children, including son Jack Keller III and daughter Kathy Keller-Kohlberg. After his father’s death, his children continued to play poker. Jack Keller III won the RunGood Poker Series Main Event in the family’s native Tunica, where he received first place $62,826.

Kathy Keller-Kohlberg reached the WSOP prize money three times in 2024, and throughout her career won $340,278 in prizes.

WSOP 1984 Main Event Results