A Poker Tale: Kenneth Adams’ Crazy Route from Alaska Vacation to Vegas to WPT Maryland – and Even a Cameo in "Rounders"

By Sean Chaffin

The picture on the wall was mesmerizing. It seemed so out of place at a furrier in Alaska. Kenneth Adams (pictured), 72, just couldn’t get his eyes off of it. Numerous photos adorned the walls of the historic David Green Master Furrier shop, showing how the place had grown and succeeded through the years after. Green arrived in Alaska in 1922 after reading the classic book Call of the Wild and his shop had become an institution.

“You know when you’re going someplace everybody says, ‘Oh if you’re going there you should do this,’” says Adams, who played Day 2 of WPT Maryland. “Everybody told me, ‘You’ve got to go to this fur shop in Anchorage.’ Sure enough, we went in and it was a wonderful place.”

It was 1985, and Adams and his family were on a vacation he had purchased at a charity auction as the only bidder. Those photos in the fur shop featured celebrities from the last 50 years showing off their purchases from the store. Green’s sons were also a focus of many as they took over the business as David got older.

But that one photograph still kept Adams’ gaze and just seemed so out of place.

“This one picture just didn’t make any sense,” Adams says. “It wasn’t a picture of anybody in a fur coat. It was a picture of two guys at a poker table glaring at each other across the table and mounds of chips. You could recognize that one of them was one of the sons.”

Soon Adams and his wife were checking out a fur coat she wanted to purchase. Negotiations on price began, and after asking to speak to the boss out came David Green’s sons, Perry. The Adamses reached an agreement, and his wife soon had a new coat.

Adams had one more question for Perry.

“That picture on the wall, you in a poker game,” he said. “What’s up with that?”

It turned out that he was speaking to Perry Green, not only a fur coat proprietor but also the winner of three World Series of Poker bracelets. The picture featured him heads-up against the legendary Stu Ungar in the 1981 Main Event. Ungar went on to win the bracelet, the second of his three titles. The photo featured the last hand of the tournament, and Perry took home $150,000 as runner-up. The entire tournament was captured by author Al Alvarez in his classic book, The Biggest Game in Town, etched into poker history.

From Rookie to Rounders

“Do you like to play cards?” Perry asked.

Adams didn’t quite know how to respond at first. He had a regular home game, but had never seen anything on the level of the WSOP and had never even played Texas Hold’em. Most of his games were old-school wild-card games. For Adams, that conversation with Perry seemed like a life-changing moment.

“He looked at me in a way nobody has ever looked into me before,” Adams says. “And I just had the sense that how I answered that question was going to make a difference. I just answered it straightforward and said, ‘Yeah.’”

“Come with me,” Perry responded.

The two men went to a back office and Perry put on the Binion’s Horseshoe cap he was wearing in the picture. Adams wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Perry slid open a drawer in his desk and handed a copy of Alvarez’s book to his customer.

“He wouldn’t let me pay him for it,” Adams says. “I read it on the way home on the airplane, and I loved the book. I was really intrigued by the World Series and this game that the professionals play for bragging rights. We had never heard of it on the East Coast.”

Texas Hold’em was a soon a regular part of Adams and his friends’ game, dedicating the first hour of each session. Each player chipped in $10 for a pool as part of their play, and the players kept score based on winnings. At the end of the year, the player with the most points won the entire prize pool for a trip to Vegas to watch the Main Event final table.

“So I won the money in the box and flew to Las Vegas, and stayed at Binion’s and watched the final table,” he says. “In those days, there was nobody there. There weren’t even any chairs. You stood around the ropes and watched. And I stood there watching, and that was the year that Johnny Chan beat Erik Seidel in the hand that came around later in the movie Rounders.”

Adams can even be seen briefly in the film if one looks really hard. He adds with a chuckle: “I like to tell people I’m in ‘Rounders.’ If you know where to look, you can see me right behind Johnny Chan.”

Indeed he is in the film – you just have to look close.

Old School Poker

That chain of events, from meeting Perry Green to watching Chan win a title, led to a lifelong love of Texas Hold’em. He was soon attending each final table, even writing some articles for publications on the East Coast so he could obtain a press credential to speak with the players.

When not following the action, he was also learning – heading to games in downtown Vegas or jumping in events at the Mirage, which was the biggest poker spot on the Strip at the time. In 2002, Adams finally won a seat in a $100 dollar satellite to earn his first seat in a WSOP event, a $1,000 Pot Limit Hold’em tournament.

“All the events were small then and there were probably no more than 100 people, but they were all pros,” he says. “I was terrified.”

Adams had become friends with quite a few players after covering the event for several years. His table featured poker legends Freddy Deeb and T.J. Cloutier. After playing tight as a drum, Adams and Cloutier got all their chips in when an Ace landed on the flop. Adams showed A-Q and Cloutier tabled A-9. He looked to be in good shape, but a 9 on the river sent him packing.

A few years later, Adams’ law practice took off. He wasn’t able to write about the events anymore but had more money now to play.

“I’ve been playing in the World Series ever since,” he says.

Fittingly, Adams even notched a cash in the Main Event this summer – 335th for $37,705. The player who inspired him also made some waves. At age 82, Perry Green was back at the WSOP – cashing in the $2,500 Mixed Big Bet event, which featured plenty of young pros and 205 entries.

Tournament Trail

Along with being a regular at the WSOP, the native of Washington D.C. has become a regular at Live! Hotel & Casino since the property opened in 2012, Adams has cashed in a few Live! tournaments including a win in a $261 Triple Stack event in 2016 for $4,100. The location of the casino has made it one of his favorites.

“I used to play Borgata and Foxwoods a lot, but now I can play close to home here,” he says. “So I play Maryland Live! and I play MGM.”

His poker results include more than $389,000 in live tournament winnings dating back to 2002. His biggest cash came in 2005 in a $565 preliminary event as part of the WPT World Poker Finals at Foxwoods, where he finished runner-up for $87,430 in an event that featured 1,245 entries. All told, Adams owns three WPT Main Tour cashes. 

“I love tournament poker,” he says. “I play the World Series every year and I play two other tournament series.”

As an attorney, Adams specializes in big-case litigation on the plaintiff side and was one of the attorneys representing fishermen after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989. He loves his job but also loves the time he gets to play cards. Adams was happy to get in on the fun at the WPT Maryland despite busting out before the first break on Day 2.

It’s been a long time since that big trip to Alaska. Perry Green may not remember that conversation in his fur shop 33 years ago, but for Kenneth Adams – it seems like yesterday.

Sean Chaffin is a freelance writer in Crandall, Texas, and host of the True Gambling Stories podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @PokerTraditions.

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