Poker gems, #8

From All In: The (Almost) Entirely True Story of the World Series of Poker by Jonathan Grotenstein and Storms Reback, p. 23, on how the first World Series championship was decided, revealing something of the ego of poker players:

Jack Binion then asked the participants to vote for the best all-around player.

"I couldn't understand why the fuck anybody would vote," scoffed [Amarillo] Slim. "We played for a lot of money and that was the vote."

Everyone else voted for themselves.

So Jack refined his approach. "I asked them to vote for whom they thought was second best."