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John Gale, RIP
Tikay10
Member, Administrator, Moderator Posts: 172,052
in Poker Chat
Very sad to hear that John Gale passed away yesterday. He was just 65.
Remarkably, John's first ever recorded cash was for $900,000 when he won the Bahamas PCA. Just 5 months later he was runner-up in a WSOP Event which was won by a guy named Brian Wilson.
Brian was also a good friend of mine, & won't mind me saying he was maybe the worst player ever to win a WSOP Bracelet, so John was pretty unlucky to run into Brian on a day he was hitting everything. Brian's trademark hand was 7-4 off, & nothing could force him to fold it pre-flop. Success did not last long for Brian, who, it was widely rumoured, later ended up doing jail time for some poker scam, but he later got his life back on track.
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John, meanwhile, was getting results all over the world, including 2nd in an EPT Sidey, 3rd in the Borgota WPT, and 5th & 1st in the Bellagio Cup in successive years.
Exactly a year after he was defeated by Brian Wilson for a Bracelet, he won his first WSOP in 2006.
He continued cashing big all over the world before eventually winning a 2nd WSOP Bracelet in 2015, only a few months after recovering from a brain tumour which almost killed him.
His career earnings were almost $4,000,000.
Poker was so different 10 or 15 years ago, but John was one of the first to understand pot odds, & if he had the odds there was no hand he would not play down the streets.
Various websites say his nickname was "gentleman John", which I never heard him referred to as, but it was certainly true, he was such a kind and caring man.
He lived in Bushey, Herts, & is survived by his lovely wife Shirley, who I was lucky enough to meet when she accompanied him on the Ladbrokes Poker Cruise in 2005.
He became quite unwell in the last 12 months, & things took a turn very much for the worse a week ago.
A truly lovely man, & a credit to poker.
RIP John.
Here's the PokerNews obituary of John;
https://www.pokernews.com/news/2019/11/wsop-pca-champion-john-gale-reportedly-dead-35997.htm