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Nice Guy Jay
He could be the nicest guy ever to rob you at a poker table
In the mid-50s, Jay Heimowitz joined the Army at a time when the Cold War was starting to percolate. When he and his fellow servicemen weren’t keeping the Red Menace at bay, they stayed sharp by playing the All-American game, poker. He might’ve been an Enlisted Man, but in hours spent armed with a deck of cards, he exhibited a General’s grasp of strategy. He got out of the Army in 1957, leaving with an honorable discharge and a $10,000 bankroll - thanks to poker; it was his own version of the G.I. Bill. He returned to Bethel, New York and opened a beer and pop bottling company. Two years of sweat, determination and eighty-hour work weeks later, he turned his stake into a major Budweiser distributorship. At 23, he was the youngest Budweiser distributor in the country. Bethel, New York had a lot going for it – bucolic farm country, good neighbors, clean and quiet. But was it hot spot for great poker? Not so much. Heimowitz wasn’t satisfied simply winning local home games, he wanted to be challenged. So he drove over two hours to card clubs in Manhattan to mix it up with some of the best players in the game. At the Mayfair Club, Heimowitz found players that shared his love of the game. For them, playing poker wasn’t about winning the most money. It was about making calculated decisions based on odds, observations and experience. Heimowitz could do it better than most, and he proved it by winning the first WSOP event he ever played. Since 1975, he’s won six gold bracelets and finished the Main Event in the top 20 seven times, including two final table appearances.
