When I heard in regards to the Feb. 10 passing of John Cernuto, at age 81, I used to be bummed to see one other poker legend biting the mud. I additionally realized that I had all the time considered him purely as ‘Miami’ John and could be hard-pressed to give you his final identify off the highest of my head.
Of course, that received me fascinated by poker nicknames, who has them, how they received them, and why they’re necessary. In the case of Cernuto – who held the report for event cashes with almost 600 – I’m undecided how a lot the man needed to do with Miami, having been born in New Jersey. (He did develop up in Miami and labored as an air site visitors controller earlier than shifting to Las Vegas for poker.)
He informed Card Player that his nickname originated by way of a younger girl, with whom he had been partying at Sam’s Town, paging him within the Stardust poker site. Pre-cellphone, it came to visit the loudspeaker thusly: “Line 1 phone call for Miami John Baby Doll.”
As he put it to our author, “I dropped the Baby Doll.”
Apparently, I’m in good firm having not remembered the final identify of the person who used his nickname when he entered Amarillo Slim’s Super Bowl of Poker in 1988. ‘Miami’ John aced the event, reportedly shedding solely two pots, marking his first of many massive wins.
“It was like magic,” he stated. “So I kept the name. I didn’t want to tempt fate.”
It looks like each old skool poker participant value his salt had a nickname. Some for good purpose – Mike ‘The Mouth’ Matusow and Phil ‘Poker Brat’ Hellmuth each earned their monikers by way of explosive conduct on the desk.
Some as a result of they caught themselves with the handles taking part in on-line poker – Durrr, OMG Clay Aiken, and good2cu have been on-line identifiers for teenaged Tom Dwan, Phil Galfond, and Andrew Robl, respectively.
Though Thomas Preston, higher generally known as Amarillo Slim, would finally change into notorious for doing the incorrect factor – late in life, he confronted a cost of indecency – he did have the fitting rationalization for his nickname.
“I’m so skinny that I look like the advance man for a famine,” he stated.
My recollection is that the nice author Nik Cohn penned that time period to explain his title character within the compelling guide King Death. Ever the angle-shooter, Slim seemingly nicked it from Nik.
I all the time dug Isabelle ‘No Mercy’ Mercier, John ‘Luckbox’ Juanda, and Phil ‘The Unabomber’ Laak.
Laak scored his nickname for a trademark tendency to put on shades and conceal his face underneath a hoodie. Norm Macdonald tried to popularize ‘Unabombshell’ for Phil’s shapely girlfriend Jennifer Tilly, but it surely by no means caught.
Making a nickname stick is hard. I as soon as tried it by way of a narrative I did for the previous UK journal Poker Player. I had a complete raft of nicknames to placed on gamers – my favourite was Leo ‘Spanish Fly’ Margets – and ran them previous Norman ‘Chatty’ Chad, hoping for his blessing. Playing alongside, the WSOP commentator trashed all of them and refused to assist me popularize them. It made for a enjoyable article.
As for myself, I can’t say that I personally have a poker nickname (although I did play on FullTilt as Stung2; Stung, with out a quantity, was coined/taken by my brother and designed to make folks consider Stu Ungar).
But I do have one thing of a on line casino benefit play nickname.
Following my transient stint taking part in with the grasp AP James Grosjean (it was a gambit in Oklahoma, the place the on line casino used playing cards as a substitute of cube for the taking part in of craps), certainly one of his companions, Bobby “Bullet” Sanchez, took to calling me ‘Kappy.’ The nickname caught and Grosjean named certainly one of his top-secret performs after me.
I don’t know what the play is, however that’s okay. When it involves nicknames, we take what we will get and embrace them.
Michael Kaplan is a journalist primarily based in New York City. He is the creator of 5 books (“The Advantage Players” out quickly) and has labored for publications that embrace Wired, GQ and the New York Post. He has written extensively on expertise, playing, and enterprise — with a specific curiosity in spots the place all three intersect. His article on Kelly “Baccarat Machine” Sun and Phil Ivey is at present in growth as a function movie.
