Introduction
Walter Clyde “Puggy” Pearson is an American professional poker player who tweaked his poker skills in the Navy, which he joined at age 16. During his Navy career, he learned how to palm dice and calculate pot odds, and by the time he got discharged in the early 1950s, he had scooped up more than $20000 in winnings. Pearson was also a legend on the golf course and could putt and chip just as well as PGA Tour members and won $300 000 on a game of golf. Doyle Bronson said that if he ever had to pick anyone in the world to make a putt with his life on the line, it would be his best friend, Pearson.
Puggy Pearson’s Poker Career
After his career in the Navy, he moved to Nashville, where he spent a decade operating a small three-table pool hall called Pugs. Pearson then moved to Las Vegas in the mid-1960s, where he made the city’s card rooms his office alongside Moss and Roberts.
Pearson had an ultra-aggressive playing style and saw himself as the “boss”. Any poker player that wanted to win had to go through him; that was his attitude. He won four WSOP bracelets but none after 1973 and never missed a WSOP Main Event until his death, age 77, in April 2006.
Pearson was known for his marathon card sessions that would go on for 24 hours at a time, and there would always be a giant stogie clenched between his lips. When he passed away, dozens of newspapers published a photo of the RV with the mantra painted on the side “I’ll play any man from any land, in any game he can name, for any amount I can count, provided I like it”
Walter Pearson was a colourful character and lived life to the fullest, and he is still remembered as one of the toughest players and prop bettors ever to have lived.
