Greek Poker Players - Archie Karas, Nick Dandolos, Peter Vilandos, Billy Argyros, Chris Tsiprailidis (Paperback)

Chapters: Archie Karas, Nick Dandolos, Peter Vilandos, Billy Argyros, Chris Tsiprailidis. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 24. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Archie Karas (born Anargyros Karabourniotis in 1950) is a Greek-American gambler, poker player, and pool shark famous for the largest and longest documented winning streak in gambling history simply known as The Run when he turned $50 in December 1992 into over $40 million by the beginning of 1995, only to lose it all later that year. He is considered by many to have been the greatest gambler of all time and has often been compared to Nick the Greek, another high stakes gambler. Karas himself claims to have gambled with more money than anyone else in history. Karas was born in 1950 at Antypata on the island of Cefalonia, Greece. He grew up in poverty and had to shoot marbles as a teenager to avoid going hungry. His father, Nickolas, was a construction worker who struggled financially. Karas ran away from home at the age of 15 after, in a rage, his father threw a shovel at him, barely missing his head. He never saw his father again. Nickolas died four years later. Karas worked as a waiter on a ship, making $60 a month until the ship arrived at Portland, Oregon. He then moved to Los Angeles, where he would gamble his bankroll up to $2,000,000 before losing it playing high stakes poker. After arriving in America, he worked at a restaurant in Los Angeles which was next to a bowling alley and a pool hall. There he honed his pool skills and eventually made more money playing pool than he did as a waiter. When his victims from the pool hall thinned out, he went to Los Angeles card rooms to play poker. He quickly became an astute poker player, building his bankroll to over $2,000,000. In December 1992, he had lost all but $50 play...More: http: //booksllc.net/?id=2177881