Poker champ Puggy Pearson

His name was Walter Clyde Pearson, but everyone in the world of poker knew him as "Puggy."

A cigar-chewing, legendary poker player, Puggy Pearson owned a $200,000, 38-foot, diesel-powered Imperial Holiday Rambler motor home dubbed the "Rovin' Gambler" painted with the words: "I'll play any man from any land any game that he can name for any amount that I can count."

Then came the kicker, in smaller letters: "providing I like it."

It was a fitting motto for the 1973 World Series of Poker champion and a member of the Poker Hall of Fame, a Tennessee fifth-grade dropout who played in the highest-stakes poker games in Las Vegas for more than 25 years.

Mr. Pearson died April 12 in Las Vegas. He was 77. His family told the Las Vegas Sun that he had oral surgery and apparently hit his head when he either fell or had a heart attack.

Mr. Pearson is credited with introducing to Las Vegas the "freeze-out" style of tournament poker — everyone starts with the same amount of chips and, as players are eliminated, the winner takes all. The format has been incorporated into the World Series of Poker and all other major poker tournaments.

In 1973, Mr. Pearson took home $130,000 from a field of 13 players in the $10,000 buy-in, No Limit Texas Hold 'Em World Championship — the first time the event was recorded for television.

Last year's event drew more than 5,600 entries. Joseph Hachem won with $7.5 million.

Mr. Pearson was one of the more colorful characters in a world that has spawned its share of them and is featured prominently in many books.

He was known to show up at major poker tournaments in the 1970s and '80s in full Viking regalia, or as a pistol-packing cowboy or an American Indian.

"He was a charming, talented rogue," said Howard Schwartz, owner of the Gamblers Book Shop in Las Vegas.

One of nine children, Mr. Pearson was born Jan. 29, 1929, in Adairville, Ky., and grew up in the hills of Tennessee. His illiterate parents were so poor, he once said, "that we had to move every time the rent came due. I didn't know what shoes were until I left home."

Mr. Pearson, who left school at 11 to go to work and help his family, earned his nickname when he was 12. To impress a girl, he was walking on his hands over 2-by-4s at a church construction site when he fell, landing on his nose. Around the pool halls where he hustled money, the players took one look at his flattened nose and started calling him "Pug."

Mr. Pearson joined the Navy at 17 and trained to be a frogman. He also learned to play poker, refining his skills in poker and pool during 10 years in the Navy.

Out of the Navy in the mid-1950s, he made his living at poker and developed a reputation for being an aggressive player.

In addition to winning the World Series of Poker's main event in 1973, Mr. Pearson won the 1971 limit seven-card-stud world title, the 1973 $1,000 buy-in, no-limit hold 'em championship and the 1973 $4,000 buy-in limit seven-card-stud title.

He is survived by longtime companion Simin Habibian; son Stephen Mark Pearson; daughter Andrea Elaine Phelan; brother J.C. Pearson; sisters Bobbie Jean Bailey and Gladys Gracie Pearson; and a grandson.