Slots-Playing ‘Poker Granny’ Linda Hammons Runs Deep in First Ever Poker Tournament

With 2,628 entries and a top prize of $115,000, the $500 Mystery Bounty event at the Beau Rivage Resort & Casino saw Linda Hammons enter a poker tournament for the first time. In Biloxi, Mississippi, that might not make headline news. But the 88-year-old ‘Poker Granny’ at the felt was a slots player and ended up coming 14^th for $10,100.

“They Took My Favorite Machine Away!”

The Beau Rivage Resort & Casino, she was unable to find her usual slot machines. Instead, she played a poker tournament for the first time… and won over $10,000. The 88-year-old Hammons, nicknamed ‘Granny’ by her fellow players, travelled to her regular slot machines at the venue only to find that they had gone.

“They took out the machines that I wanted to play, so I just wandered up here.” Hammons said, describing the top of the room, where the $500-entry Mystery Bounty event had taken over the casino space. “Everybody’s been really nice, they treat me good.”

Sitting down to play, Hammons was one of a mammoth 2,628 player pool, with hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line. The Beau Rivage Heater, part of the Gulf Coast Poker Tour (GPT) series, had been busy for the previous fortnight in Biloxi, Mississippi, but never at the expense of Hammons’ favorite slots.

Once in the action, Hammons couldn’t lose. She made it to the top half of the field. Then she beat the money bubble, making her $500 entry fee run into profit. At the slots, there would only have been an outside chance of this converting to double its money. Further and further Hammons ran, deeper into the field until she was in the top 10%, then 5%… then, amazingly, the top 1%.

“I Showed Them! I Wish I’d Stayed Longer.”

With just two tables left, Hammons was sitting to the direct left of Harold Evans when he shoved with pocket queens. Hammons looked down at her king-nine of clubs and decided that she could wait no longer to commit her chips. Pushing them over the line, plenty of her fellow opponents wished her luck, with numerous fans forming something of a rail.

“Good luck, Granny!” one declared.

The flop only improved Evans’ chances of holding his way to the most unpopular of eliminations. Hammons picked up a gutshot straight draw on the turn but despite everyone except Evans willing it in, no king or queen landed, as Hammons missed her six outs.

As Hammons stood, a ripple of warm applause enveloped her from the rail and she gave a bow to her fans and opponents as she left to best wishes from everyone involved in the event.

Hammons reward? A cool $10,100 for coming 14^th in the event, outlasting 2,614 other entries.

“I showed them! I wish I’d stayed longer.” She remarked to the Sun Herald the next day.

“I Gotta Win This One!”

After Hammons left, it’s fair to say that she took a lot of the rail with her. The man who busted her, Thomas Evans, made the final table but bowed out in seventh place for a score of $16,335. A few orbits later, it was all over, with Randall Chase Cummins and Michael Lech chopping the remaining prize pool when heads-up. That meant both men cashed for an equal top and second-place prize of $115,136, with Cummins eventually taking the title and trophy.

Hammons was not out of the Beau Rivage Resort & Casino for long. The day after her tournament heroics, she decided that poker beat the slot machines again, and played in her second ever event.

Asked why she had chosen to return to the felt by local newspaper the Sun Herald, Hammons explained.

“I gotta win this one, I gotta outdo yesterday!” she laughed.

Asked by the female reporter whether she can ‘shuffle’ chips – it’s called riffling but we’ll look past that – Hammons shook her head with a chuckle.

“I can’t, everybody else can but my fingernails get in the way. I’m not giving up my fingernails!”

There’ll be bigger winners at the felt this year than Linda Hammons, but none of them will have her charm.