Hold 'Em History: Crandell Addington

[Johnny Hughes]

Crandell Addington, one of the most colorful and eloquent gambler's from the Lone Star State, has written the history section in Doyle Brunson's new book Super/System2. Addington played all the top players from the seventies both on the road and at the final table of the
World Series.

Recently I was attempting to find out why A,10 was named Johnny Moss. I wrote Nolan Dalla, Jan Fisher, Lou Krieger, and Jeff Shulman. No one knew. Mr. Dalla wrote to Crandell Addington. This was his reply:

Good morning, Johnny:

I asked Doyle about it late last night. He said he thought that Johnny had won some big pots with A 10 while we were all gypsy gamblers on the road. I never saw one in all the years we played together, but we didn't play together all the time in every place. I'll offer you an opinion. Moss was a great player, and would have played A 10 against all of us cautiously. For instance, Johnny knew that if the flop was A rag rag in a pot with experienced road gamblers and there was a lot of action on the flop, then the A 10 was no good. This makes it unlikely, in my opinion, that Johnny would come into a raised pot with A 10 against skilled players. This doesn't apply to players who he knew were behind on the learning curve. The hands that you see played today on TV involving A rag are an aberration of the game for the most part, created by the time requirements of fitting the game into the TV model.

I hope that this is helpful.

Have a nice day.
Crandell