Career
Before becoming a well-known tournament player, Preston was a rounder, touring the United States looking for gambling action along with Doyle Brunson and Sailor Roberts.
Following his WSOP victory he appeared on several talk shows, including The Tonight Show, and had a bit part in the 1974 Robert Altman movie California Split. He appeared on I've Got a Secret, where his secret involved losing $190,000 in one night of poker.
Preston won four WSOP bracelets including two in Omaha. Preston's final WSOP win was in 1990. In the $2500 pot limit Omaha event at the 2000 he came in second to Phil Ivey. Preston's tournament earnings total more than $587,000.
In January/February 1980 Amarillo Slim hosted the Second Annual Poker Classic which was the second most prestigious poker tournament of its time. This series eventually came to be called the Super Bowl of Poker and continued until 1991. Gabe Kaplan became the first winner of this tournament series and Stu Ungar won the title three times.
Read more about this topic: Amarillo Slim
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“It is a great many years since at the outset of my career I had to think seriously what life had to offer that was worth having. I came to the conclusion that the chief good for me was freedom to learn, think, and say what I pleased, when I pleased. I have acted on that conviction... and though strongly, and perhaps wisely, warned that I should probably come to grief, I am entirely satisfied with the results of the line of action I have adopted.”
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—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)