Johnny Moss: I Never Felt Sorry For The Losers       Today if you want to study poker you can buy books of get coached. But if you look back to early 1900… No books, no coaches and very small number of really professional poker players. The only way to become one of them – practice, practice and… practice, wherever you go. Johnny Moss began to do it when he was 10 years old. At this age he was taught the tricks. Of course, it was cheater’s knowledge.       He wanted an honest job. “The eye in the sky” (keeping a eye on poker games in local saloons to make sure they are clean) sounds better than cheater, doesn’t it? It also became for Moss a good school of poker strategy and behavior.       As many other gamblers Johnny Moss began with the road playing. But one thing differed him from the others: his game was clean and good enough to avoid using tricks: “I knew how to do it, but I didn’t have to steal”.   Yes, his game was so brilliant that he really didn’t need any tricks. And he also didn’t allow other players to fool him: “One night I’m playing in some small town – I don’t remember where, maybe Oklahoma – and I see they got the room set up as a peep joint [with a confederate spying on player’ cards through a peep hole in the ceiling]. So I pull out my gun – always carried a gun back in those days – and said, ‘Now, fellas, do I have to go and shoot a bulletin the ceiling? Or you going to send your boy down without any harm?’ Hell, they thought I was bluffing. Ended up shooting the guy in his ass.” Its not the only one story about Johnny Moss. You may think he was cruel. No, he wasn’t cruel – just fair.       Benny Binion considered him to be the best player in the world. And as you know in 1949 he held a marathon for him and Nick the Greek. In fact, Binion was Johnny’s good friend and his benefactor also. When running this marathon he asked Moss: “Johnny, I got this game all set up for you. What do you want to do?” What do you think Johnny answered? He said: “Leave the town”. If he had done so, maybe there would be no WSOP. By the way, Johnny was the one who had won at it three times (1970, 1971,1974).       Those who knew Moss always said: “If you haven’t lost a game to Johnny Moss, you haven’t really played poker”. He played poker to his dying day (he died in 1997). And poker was the only thing that could bring light into the tired eyes of an old man.       Michael Konik (Cigar Aficionado’s gambling columnist) described him this way: “He’s a frail man. <…> Put him on a park bench surrounded by pigeons and screaming toddlers, and you would think him a nattily attired gentleman watching the world go by, stretching his pension into the twilight of his years.”       But he wasn’t watching the world going by… maybe observing other players lose. He once said: “I never felt sorry for the losers”. And he was never remembered as a loser.