Thomas “Amarillo Slim” Preston, 1972 World Series of Poker Main Event champion and four-time WSOP bracelet winner, died Sunday April 29, 2012 after a battle with cancer. He was 83.
In mid-April Preston was admitted to a hospice care facility in his hometown of Amarillo, Texas. His family released a statement Sunday afternoon confirming the poker legend’s passing.
“We hope everyone will remember our beloved Amarillo Slim for all the positive things he did for poker and to popularize his favorite game – Texas Hold’em,” the statement read.
“Slim will forever be remembered as the most famous poker player of the 20th Century. But he was much more than just a poker player and gambler,” said Nolan Dalla, WSOP Media Director. “He was a real life character, stealing just about every scene on which he appeared on the greater stage of life. There will never be another quite like him.”
Many credit Preston for creating the blueprint for poker players as mainstream celebrities. Following his win in the 1972 WSOP, Preston was a guest of Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show – the first of 11 Tonight Show appearances he would make during his career. He was the first poker player to appear on the Tonight Show and helped introduce poker to millions of Americans by appearing on other TV shows including What’s My Line, Good Morning America and To Tell the Truth.
Prior to the first WSOP in 1970, Preston travelled throughout Texas and surrounding states with Doyle Brunson and Brian “Sailor” Roberts playing in cash games. Roberts died in 1995 and Brunson and Preston remained friends, speaking as recently as last week. Sunday, Brunson remembered Preston as a friend, a gambler and a great promoter of poker.
“We had seven years together with Sailor. We spent countless hours after our games broke up dealing different hands, trying to determine the odds, etc. We were years ahead of our time and nobody will ever know how dominant we actually were in the early years of Hold’em,” said Brunson. “While Slim wasn’t quite as good a player as Sailor or myself, he was the best that ever lived at promoting games and getting different players to try us out.”
Preston knew how to use his name to promote a product. In 1979 he launched Amarillo Slim’s Super Bowl of Poker, a $10,000 buy-in event that ran at various Nevada casinos until 1991. At its peak it was considered the second most prestigious poker tournament behind only the WSOP.
Preston also wrote two books during his career. Play Poker to Win, a strategy book, hit bookshelves in 1973 while Amarillo Slim in a World Full of Fat People, his memoir, came out in 2003.
Along with his 1972 Main Event title, Preston won a $1,000 No Limit Hold’em event in 1974 and $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha events (1985 and 1990). He was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 1992.
Preston is survived by three children and seven grandchildren.
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