The answer to the second part of the question is yes, there are that many unanswered questions. As we’ve mentioned in the past, there are literally thousands of questions in the queue. Some of the best ones, though, can be answered only by a specific person (in this case, Anthony Curtis), so they have to wait till we can get that person to provide the answer. We finally got A.C. to give up the goods and you can read his response below. But first, here’s the set-up.
Last year the following was posted on the blackjack-tournament boards at LasVegasAdvisor.com:
"Those of you who have seen Russ Hamilton win the ’94 World Series of Poker main-event championship know that standing right in the front on the rail was Anthony Curtis, Blair Rodman, and Fred David ... all former members of the Wong Tournament Team with Russ."
Frequent LVA contributor Bradley Peterson took issue:
"Certainly Blair Rodman and Anthony Curtis were on Wong's tournament team. But I am almost certain that neither Russ Hamilton nor Fred David were ever part of that team. They were part of a competing tournament team, but not Wong's team."
The original poster responded by citing an article from ALL IN magazine about Russ that was written by none other than LVA’s own Deke Castleman that read, "[Russ] joined a tournament blackjack team, which included Anthony Curtis, Blair Rodman, Fred David, and other blackjack pros." So it’s easy to see why there was confusion. Following is the complete story, direct from Anthony.
You're correct. Blair, Fred, and I can all be seen in the background when Russ won $1 million and his weight in silver in the 1994 WSOP Champion. We were tremendous friends by then, but we didn’t start out together.
The original Wong tournament team, formed in the mid-‘80s, had five players: Stanford Wong, Ernie Amore, Dave Douglas, Anne Amster, and myself. (By the way, Wong and the others were all long-time friends. I was brought in as the only outsider. I tell that story in an article I wrote for Blackjack Forum, titled "Beyond Wong.") A sixth player, Blair Rodman, is often cited as being on the original team and he mostly deserves to be placed in that group. But by the letter of absolutes, we began without him. After playing in a few small tournaments, Wong told me that he thought taking on one more player would be optimal and I recommended Blair, who then joined and played until we disbanded.
At the time, Russ Hamilton was playing in blackjack mini-tournaments at the Royal and Lady Luck, mostly for fun. And Wong’s team began showing up at those minis to practice. Russ, Blair, and I struck up a friendship, and being the level of advantage player he is, Russ quickly realized that there was value in what we were pursuing. Soon Russ was involved on a higher level (with a couple of other players) in direct competition with Wong. Actually, several such tournament teams were already in action when we came onto the scene, and one of them was run by Allan Brown (famous for being one of the two players back-roomed and badly beaten at the old Horseshoe). We played against them all regularly.
Wong wanted to make money, but his primary reason for starting the team was to research a book on tournament play, and after less than two years, he informed us that he was leaving the team to do just that (the legendary Casino Tournament Strategy). Ernie, Dave, and Anne weren’t too interested in playing without Stanford and went on to other things. But Blair and I wanted to keep playing. And that’s where things converged.
By now, Allan Brown’s team had absorbed Russ' group, and near the end of the Wong campaign, Brown’s team (which included Ed House, Barry Finn, Bob Clarenbach, Joe Nienaber, Sharon Nienaber, and Russ) was our number-one rival. When he heard of the Wong break-up, Allan approached Blair and me to join them, and we did. During our time p
