One of the biggest news stories from yesterday was that Los Angeles Lakers owner Jerry Buss passed away at the age of 80. He’d been battling cancer and was hospitalized last Thursday before dying on Monday. Because of Buss’ poker playing background, the World Series of Poker is in the process of naming a tournament after him.
As reported by TMZ, the WSOP wants to either name their Seven Card Stud Championship after Buss, or at least dedicate a trophy to him – much like the “Chip Reese Memorial Trophy” that goes to the $50k Players Championship winner. A WSOP rep told TMZ:
At the appropriate time, we will seek to ask the family to honor [Jerry’s] legacy by possibly naming our WSOP Seven Card Stud Championship after him or awarding the victor a special perpetual trophy in his honor.
“We’re definitely going to miss seeing him … Even when the Lakers were playing in the NBA Finals, you could often find Dr. Buss playing his favorite game — Seven Card Stud — at the World Series of Poker.
As the above statement alludes to, Jerry Buss was very fond of playing high stakes Seven Card Stud cash games. He also experienced success in the Stud tournament scene after finishing third place in a 1991 WSOP Seven Card Stud event.
Later on in life, Buss got into lots of other tournaments and played from 1991 to 2011, when age and declining health convinced him to stop playing so much poker. None of Buss’ cashes were overly-large – with his biggest being worth $33,800 – but he did manage to accumulate $172,490 in winnings before passing away.
As a testament to how much Dr. Buss loved poker, he once skipped a Los Angeles Lakers NBA Championship parade to play poker at the Bicycle Casino, which was just 10 miles away. Taking everything here into account, it’s no wonder why the WSOP wants to name an event after him.