From High Stakes to the Hall of Fame Doorstep: The Life and Times of Eli Elezra

If passion for the game was the main criteria for induction into the Poker Hall of Fame, Eli Elezra probably would have been in years ago.

“I had 10 cashes at the World Series of Poker this year and I made two final tables, but I don’t just play 11 or 12 hours a day in the tournaments. When I finish, I go straight to Aria or Bellagio and play cash until 5 a.m., then I get up at 11 a.m. and get right back into the tournaments. Why? Because I love poker,” said Elezra, who at 55 years old became a first-time nominee for the Poker Hall of Fame this year.

“I’ve been playing in Las Vegas since 1987, and even in those days, it was five or six days a week. I don’t know why – I just love it. I’m not playing as high [stakes] as I used to play, but I will tell you, when Chip Reese died, Doyle Brunson and I become very good friends and we talk on the phone a lot. Sometimes Doyle sits at home and says he isn’t feeling very well; he’s sick and he doesn’t want to come in and play poker. I always say the same thing. I say, ‘Doyle, that’s your medicine. If you are sick, get off your ass and come play poker. When you play, you never feel sick.’ I swear to you it’s true. Whatever that is, it’s in my blood too. When I play poker, I don’t feel any pain and I’m never sick. I just love the game, I love the [mental] war and I love making money at it.”

A Hebrew-language biography is currently being penned about Elezra’s life, with plans for a late 2016 or early 2017 release. While the book will certainly include much more detail, the long and short of Elezra’s history is that he was born and raised in Jerusalem, Israel. He served as an officer in the Israeli Army, fought in the 1982 Lebanon War, and nearing the end of four years of service, was wounded. After being discharged from the service, he moved to Alaska, first working in a cannery and then as a taxi driver to make ends meet.

While he started playing poker in a game with other Alaskan taxi drivers, Elezra really began to take the game seriously when he followed his sister and brother-in-law to Las Vegas, where they opened up a number of retail businesses, including several popular film development and T-shirt shops. He played regularly across the street from one location at the Stardust Hotel.

“Right away I started to play $20/$40 and $40/$80 at Startdust, then maybe in 1990, I played my first tournament at the Horseshoe,” Elezra said. “By 1991 and 1992 I was playing in mixed Omaha 8-or-better and Stud 8 games with Scotty Nguyen. The truth is I immediately fell in love with the cash games, but not so much with the tournaments. Phil Hellmuth, he was playing all the tournaments, but we played mostly cash. I can remember Billy Baxter saying that if we had all played as many tournaments as Phil Hellmuth did back in the day, we’d have 25 bracelets by now, not 13, but we really didn’t play that many tournaments.”

Even though he was a fish at the beginning, Elezra liked poker.

“I was losing, yes, but I was enjoying myself,” he said. “My businesses were making enough money that I could go and play blackjack or baccarat and lose some money. I just decided poker was my thing. Playing casino games you are going to lose all the time anyway. With poker I could at least have a good time doing it. Even as a fish, if you win two out of 10 times or three out of 10 times, you have something to feel good about.”

As the nineties wore on, Elezra moved from the mid-stakes games at the Stardust to the biggest games in town at the Mirage, becoming a regular fixture in the $500/$1,000 Stud with players like Howard Lederer, Annie Duke and David Grey.

When the Bellagio opened in the fall of 1998 and Bobby Baldwin invited the high-stakes poker community over, Elezra was among those who made the move. Things turned around considerably for the one-time fish.

“That was when I made the biggest jump,” he said. “I would play $1,000/$2,000 or $1,500/$3,000 with Doyle and Chip and I would win. They always wanted to kick it up, and playing three-handed with them, people thought I was completely crazy, but I was winning, and I made so much money. Today, Doyle is better than he was then. We played H.O.R.S.E., PLO and no-limit Hold’em. Deuce to Seven Triple Draw was introduced later, but we always played no-limit Deuce and I learned so much from those guys. Again, people thought I was crazy playing with the best in the world, but for whatever reason, I started winning.”

The three-handed game soon got bigger, …

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