Poker News

Thomas ‘Tip’ O’Neill

Thomas “Tip” O’Neill was a 20th Century American Hero. One of the last, great, liberal New Deal Democrats, he dedicated himself to a lifetime in politics fighting for the working class and underprivileged.

He came from a family of risk-takers, Irish immigrants who gambled everything to win a new life in the USA. Born in 1912, O’Neill grew up in the poor, urban, Irish working- class neighborhood of Cambridge, Mass. Here he developed a lifelong love for baseball, betting, cards, and common folk.

He writes in his memoirs, “All through my teenage years and into my twenties, my life revolved around a neighborhood gang” whose clubhouse was an abandoned basement barbershop. “There was always a card game”, poker or gin, “Nobody had much money; so the games were for a few pennies, a nickel at most.”

Young O’Neill had a talent for numbers, counting cards, figuring odds and percentages. It proved to be a valuable asset for a poker player as well as a politician.

According to one biographer, “O’Neill started his serious card playing in high school and college.” He conducted poker games under the baseball bleachers “to keep his father from discovering he was gambling”.

After graduating from Boston College in 1936, O’Neill successfully ran for the State Legislature. He credited his poker pals for the victory “because without their hard work, I never would have been elected.”

Tip O’Neill served 16 years in the Massachusetts Legislature, eventually becoming Speaker of the House. He said, “It helped enormously that I liked to play cards. There was always a game going on in the basement of the statehouse.”

Tip recalled, “It was a nickel game and the players came from both parties.” One participant remembered they would spend most weekends “playing cards, with our shirts off and a bathtub full of beer.”

In 1952, O’Neill won the Congressional seat in the House of Representatives vacated by John F. Kennedy who was elected to the U.S. Senate.

Here again, poker proved important to O’Neill’s rise to power and prominence. He would later write, “Poker provided me with a great opportunity to meet my fellow legislators, which in turn enhanced my political career.”

“When I went to Washington I played cards probably every night of the week”, he says. The University Club was a favorite. They played a variety of 7-Stud games with raises limited to three. $400 was a good night. Among the regulars were Representatives and Senators, Democrats and Republicans. “There were no parties or factions in that room. There was only good fellowship”, Tip fondlyrecalled.

Congressional Democratic Leader John McCormack, from Boston, became O’Neill’s political mentor. In his memoirs, O’Neill says, “Perhaps the most important place he ever took me was Speaker Sam Rayburn’s ‘Board of Education’, where I met some of the real powers in Washington.”

Speaker of the House Rayburn’s “Board of Education” was like a private, insiders club. The room was unmarked and a guard stood at the door. It was the unofficial seat of power in Congress. Here, high end politics and high limit poker was played.

O’Neill soon became a Democratic leader in Congress. In the late 1960s, he became a critic of his party’s President, Lyndon Johnson, over the war in Vietnam. Tip writes, “I began my investigation of the Vietnam War during a poker game at the Army and Navy Club.” One of the players was retired Marine Corps Commander General David Shoup who’d resigned over the Administration’s war policy.

Eventually, Tip became one of the strongest critics of LBJ and the war. Johnson was angry; he considered O’Neill a traitor. The President said to Tip, “What kind of a S.O.B. are you? You and I have been friendly since the day you came to Washington. We were both at the Board of Education together.” O’Neill replied honestly, “In my heart and in my conscience I believe your policy is wrong. You can’t expect the country to stand behind you while you’re fighting a war that can’t be won.”

Tip appreciated that “poker and politics require some of the same skills. In each case, you need to understand the people you’re playing with, as well as how to… calculate the odds.” And, “it helps enormously if you know when to bet, when to fold, and when to sit tight.”

Among regular Washington players, O’Neill thought very little of Republican Congressman Richard Nixon’s game. One evening, after listening to Nixon complain about his bad luck, a disgusted O’Neill told him, “You know, I’m sick and tired of reading what a good poker player you are. As a matter of fact, you’re one of the worst poker players I’ve ever seen.” Nixon replied, “I was pretty good in the Navy, but you fellows are tough.”

Later, as Majority Leader in the House, Tip O’Neill became the most powerful Democrat in the House to push for investigation and impeachment of President Nixon. Ultimately, in 1974, Nixon resigned.

O’Neill was the unanimous choice for Speaker of the House in 1977 and served until he retired in 1987. In 1994, at the age of 81, the old New Deal Democrat died.

Senate Republican Leader Bob Dole, who admired his adversary, declared that Tip O’Neill “will go down in history as one of the great political leaders of our time.”

And he might have added, one of the nation’s most important poker players.

Filed under: Poker News