Rob, the first time I seen Tuna was at the 1992 final event of the WSOP. He was at the final table and came in third behind Tom Jacobs and Hameed Dastmalchi. I had no clue who he was. I watched that final table without enough money in my pocket to rub two quarters together. Somehow in that process I was inspired to becoome a professional gambler.
The attempt wasn't an easy ride. I was basically homeless for the next four years. But I eventually got there. Tuna didn't talk to guys like me. He was highly competitive and shunned us. So all I knew about him was what I observed and what others told me about him. So here is some of the stories:
Tuna had a slot team and he is even mentioned in Frank Kneeland's book. We always wondered how Tuna had such extensive knowledge of slot progressives. Tuna grew up in Sparks, Nevada. Many of his classmates became employee's of IGT. I played poker with some of them at the Peppermill/Reno. They were damn good friends of his. But they wouldn't tell me all the information they relayed to him.
Tuna was a poker dealer at the Cal Neva/Reno but was stabbing at gambling. He hit a pick six in the Cal Neva Horse book. About that time a compulsive gambler from Pennsylvania named Kenny the Klone showed up in Reno. Kenny was a mathematical genius. He seen the video poker progressives with big fat meters around town and automatically knew they offered big overlays. But Kenny's problem was he couldn't hold a dollar. So he taught the play to Tuna. Tuna took that football and ran on off with it. He put a slot team together. His was one of the teams that competed against Frank Kneeland's team. But Tuna was nation wide. He would send his team anywhere in the country. He became a multi-millionaire because of his slot team.
Tuna was a strong arm guy. He would monopolize every machine in a joint when a big fat overlay was presented. I stood on the rail many times in Reno when a big fat play was going down because Tuna had every good machine locked up 24 hours a day. If Tuma was late finding a play and we all were working it. If we didn't cut him in he would walk right into Slot Operations and tell them what the hell was going on. I think Tuna's strategy was "F--- everybody but me."
A couple of things happened in the late nineties. Tuna disappeared out of Reno. The rumors were that he was on a big fat video keno play in Florida. And that he had met some crackhead broad in Mississipi, married her and had a couple of kids. Tuna quit showing up at the WSOP. Everybody was asking me "Where is Tuna Lund?" All I could tell them was "I think he's holed up in Florida with some crackhead broad." I ran into Tuna's sister in downtown Las Vegas. She confirmed for me that Tuna was indeed in Florida on a dollar 8-spot video keno play. I ran the math thru my head. The odds are 233,000 and he's betting $4 a game. My God! The cost to produce the solid hit had to be over $100,000.
Around 2005 I found two quarter Draw Till U Win's in Yerington. I invited my friend Al to the play. There was another pro who showed up but left us alone. Al got to talking to the guy and they became friends. It turned out this guy was Tuna's partner on the Florida keno play. He told Al that him and Tuna split $8,000,000 in four years on the play and were paying people $30 an hour to play the game. It has to be the biggest play of all time. Beating one joint out of two million dollars a year. My God!
Tuna showed back up in Reno at about that time. But he wasn't in action that much. Only occasionally. We all thought he might have went broke or something. But then one day I was walking between the El Dorado and the Silver Legacy. Up by that brew pub I saw Tuna and his team on a carousel. They had all 8 machines locked up. I walked over to take a look. Tuna gave me a look like "git the f--- out of here, punk.." I go "No, no, no, Tuna! You don't tell me what to do asshole." They were playing dollar full pay deuces. Except it was twenty coin dollar full pay deuces. The play lasted three days.
Shortly after that Tuna was interviewed by Cardplayer Magazine. He told them he would come back to the WSOP after he got his kids raised. And he had put the broad into rehab.
I came to Montana in November 2007. My only intention was to beat these hillbillies out of a little bit of money then go back to Nevada. A month turned into a year. A year turned into two years. In 2009 my Nevada friends were telling me that Tuna had gone nuts. No one knew it at the time but Tuna had brain cancer. Tuna died in late 2009.
Brad Daugherty, Tuna's best friend, and a WSOP winner,told us that on his death bed Tuna put $10 on a poker site and played poker in the hospital room until he died. He ran the $10 up to $15,000.
A month in Montana has turned into five years. I'm not getting rich here. I turn 50K to 60K a year. But my expenses run 40K a year. But the thing is...I'm happy here. I have a lot of friends here. I've been on the road all my life. I always wondered where the last stop would be. It looks like Montana is my last stop.
But I always think back to those early days. Watching Tuna at the WSOP. The four years of homelessness I put my through just to become somewhat like him. Was it all worth it? Damn right it was worth it. I wouldn't trade the experience for anything....and Tuna Lund gets all three of my votes for the Hall of Fame.
--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "Mickey" <mickeycrimm@...> wrote:
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> Hans "Tuna" Lund. The absolute best machine pro who has ever existed. Not only video poker but video keno and video line games. A one-time poker dealer who took the knowledge and ran off with it. Tuna was a "one of a kind". He didn't have the kind of knowledge that is known today. He was a pioneer who didn't know anything about we today are about. But he had enough since to take the football and run with it. Long before pros like me existed. My three votes go for Han "Tuna" Lund. My three votes go for Hans Lund, Hans Lund, and Hans Lund.
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