What we Know About Poker Pro Fred Sarge Ferris
Playing poker for some people is a challenge, other people play it to as a hobby. Fred “Sarge” Ferris was a prodigy and he played the game because that’s how he made a living. He wasn’t playing poker to win a couple $1,000, he was in it to win six figures.
Fred “Sarge” Ferris grew up in the Great Depression and his father did everything to put food on the table. Living in poverty, his brother enlisted in the Navy and later became a well-known watchmaker and jeweler. He wanted to choose a different path. So he picked up gambling. He didn’t call it gambling. He was a consummate professional, never showing off his cards or giving away any information.
Fred “Sarge” Ferris despised publicity but when he won $10,000 at the Deuce-to-Seven Draw event tournament at the World Series of Poker in 1980, he loved the attention. He won his first and only gold bracelet and a cash prize of $150,000. Stu Ungar approached him after he collected his winning.
Stu Ungar told Ferris that he legitimately could win the world series title. It took a lot of convincing too because he told Ferris that he had never played in the World Series Of Poker before. Somehow he did it and Ferris put him in. Ungar was listed as an extreme long shot with odds at 100:1. Ungar played masterfully making the final table and defeating Ferris’s long time rival Doyle Brunson.
He made the news circuits while at Binion’s Horseshoe sitting in on a high-stakes cash game. On April 22nd, 1983, IRS agents approached Ferris in the card room, seizing $46,000 of Ferris’s chips. This was seized in order to pay back taxes he owed the federal government. One of the agents told Ferris to use the rest of the money he had to buy himself a taco.
Fred “Sarge” Ferris and his scandal outrage the local Hispanic communities. Protesting that one of the agents mocked Ferris’ ethnicity. His parents were born in Lebanon but he was somehow mistaken for a Mexican. This was all a misunderstanding. Ferris said the agent was trying to be nice. The incident died off eventually.
On March 12th 1989 Fred “Sarge” Ferris had a massive heart attack while playing at the high stakes poker table. His funeral was held in Las Vegas. A large crowd showed up to the funeral. Some were happy he passed, while others were there to pay their respects and honor his life. Because Fred spent almost all of his time at the poker tables, it was fitting to make his tombstone out of a poker table.
In late 1989, he was the 18th inductee in the Poker Hall of Fame. Another scandal would tarnish his reputation. An ongoing investigation between a Las Vegas casino on an Indian Reservation and a organized crime group, left him as one of five people that owed the mob money. Good news for Fred “Sarge” Ferris, he didn’t have to pay up!
Fred “Sarge” Ferris will forever be remember for his intelligence on the table and achievements he accomplish. Some of Ferris’s techniques are still used today and have earned him the respect of today’s and future poker players worldwide.
