I just learned that Bill Seymour died. This makes me sad.
Billy and I go back at least 30 years. We played lots of poker together at Foxwoods in Connecticut and Atlantic City during the 1990s. I had many meals with Billy over the years. I laughed with Billy. I learned a lot from Billy, who wasn’t so much a lighthouse but rather a reflective mileage marker on the adventurous journey of a well-lived and interesting life with many memorable rest stops along the way.
Each time I saw Billy I felt a little bit older and even wiser, due in some measure to his kindly and selfless tutorials in poker, but then I also must swear —- that often annoying tell-it-like-it-is no-filter used car salesman from upstate New York with the shiny head of a polished billiard ball never aged a single day nor changed in the three-plus decades that I knew him. Rich man. Poor man. He was always Billy, The man never changed. He was the prince of pricks and the joker of joviality all bundled into the combustible dynamo of a man filled with passion for everything he did. When I first met him, he most have been in his 50s but he looked 80. The last time I saw him which was last year, he still looked 80. His hands shook. His voice often quivered. But Billy Seymour had more stamina that anyone else in poker I’ve seen. His sessions weren’t measured by hours and hands, but by days and dollars.
I was never much of a tournament player. But I enjoyed a few nice scores back then. Once, my wife Marieta went with me to Foxwoods to play in the New England Poker Classic. I got hit with the deck and managed to make it to the final table. The next day, we played and I felt so proud to see Marieta sitting there on the rail. Billy sat there with her for several hours, and even offered some helpful advice, for no other reason than kindness. After I busted out, she asked me who Billy was. I answered in the most inadequate way. “A friend,” is all I said. I forget her exact words, but she retorted that if he’s a friend, we can all use more friends like Billy.
That doesn’t mean my relationship with Billy Seymour was always cordial.
One time, we were playing a 7-Card Stud tournament together at the same table. We got deep in the tourney and were just a few spots from the money. At the time, we both needed the money, and it’s a fact that poker players always need the money. Admittedly, I played a hand badly and got incredibly lucky. Unfortunately, it was against Billy on the opposite side of the table who proceeded to let me know just how badly I played the hand in front of hundreds of other players including my colleagues in the massive Foxwoods poker room.
I was dealt three big cards to a straight. Billy had trips by fourth street. I had four outs with three cards still to come, and even if I got lucky and hit my hand completing the straight, Billy could pair one of his cards and make a full house. I was in terrible shape.
Well, you know the rest of the story. But remembering it now on the occasion of Billy’s end makes me smile, and I suspect Billy too is laughing in spirit because that’s the kind of man (and friend) he was.
Hail Mary full of grace, well, on the last round of betting, I caught my miracle card. Billy had trips, but failed to improve. I made my straight. I may have even slow-rolled Billy (which may have been intentional), I can’t remember exactly, but that shocking instant bounced him out of his seat like a ping-pong ball. Billy stood up and shouted at me in a half-stutter, “TH-TH-THAT’S TOTAL B-B-BULLSHIT!” I sat there and just looked up at Billy like a dog that swallowed the school kid’s homework. Womp, womp. Yep, that homework was delicious. It was all I could do, because every poker player has been on *both* sides of those horror shows/beautiful moments…reflective memories of bad beat stories and miracle-card catches.
“YOU PLAYED THAT HAND HORRIBLY!,” he shouted. Kinda’ embarrassed, but also opportunistic for the juicy chance to bite back, I couldn’t help but notice the 500 or so people standing up and craning their necks to see from across the giant poker room what the fracas was all about at our table, with a Card Player columnist (me) getting berated by one of the East Coast’s legendary and most beloved poker players (Billy).
“HOW THE HELL CAN CARD PLAYER HIRE YOU AS A POKER COLUMNIST, THE WAY YOU PLAY? he screamed half-jokingly but with a tinge of genuine shock and disbelief.
“I don’t know, Billy,” I said. “I guess they couldn’t afford to HIRE YOU.”
Broke and busted, right then and there, Billy froze in his tracks. He looked at me like a deer trapped in the headlights on a graveyard hunt. He then smiled, and burst out laughing, and came over and gave me a hug. “Knock ’em all out,” he said.
A few hands later, I myself was out. Eliminated. I met Billy in the bar downstairs over a bottle of Napa Ridge and we laughed about that hand for the rest of the night.
Good times. A fine man.
Billy Seymour will be missed.