2014 Poker Hall of Famer Jack McClelland Bio and Poker Profile

"Poker players are intense. Poker's not life or death to them; it's much more important than that."

@Jack McClelland  was born in 1952 in McConnelsville, Ohio and moved to Las Vegas in 1976 as the drier Nevada climate was recommended for his mother’s health.

His grandmother taught him poker when he was 6 and he has loved the game ever since, but Jack found his true calling on the other side of the poker tables. As a teenager, he was already organizing poker tournaments for the neighborhood kids.

My grandmother taught me how to play, starting with two-cent ante, nickel-limit seven-card stud. I was kept broke until I was ten years old because I couldn’t throw a hand away (laughs). But I learned a lot about math playing poker. (Cardplayer interview, 2013) 

At the time of the family move to Nevada, Jack was a semi-professional bowler. In Las Vegas he got a job at Sahara Casino and was soon working as a dealer, moving up to shift manager within 18 months.

"I did everything. Set-ups, emptying ashtrays, learning to deal... A year later, I was shift manager." (PokerNews)

The casino closed in 1980 and for a while McClelland was active as a player on the live circuit, collecting first-hand experience, observations and (mostly) complaints about the way tournaments were run at the time. His late wife @Alma McClelland (herself a poker player and winner of the 1989 WSOP Ladies Event) at one point exclaimed, “If you’re such a genius, why don’t you run them yourself!”.

And that’s what he ended up doing! He started running shifts at WSOP, rapidly working his way up and running tournaments in the WSOP for 15 years. McClelland is also largely credited for bringing tournament poker to the @Commerce Casino and has directed tournaments all over the world, including Isle of Man, Austria, Cyprus, and Russia.

Because of his late wife Alma’s illness he had withdrawn from the poker scene for some years and had to start all over again in the new millenium. Both in poker and in his personal life, with a second marriage. Jack has often said it was his Polish wife Elizabeth’s passion for travel that got him back on the live circuit as a tournament director.

In 2002 he started as TD at the @Bellagio and it was to remain his home base right up to his retirement in 2013, for health reasons.

Jack McClelland was involved in the creation of the @World Poker Tour in 2002, with the then innovative idea of televised tournaments with hole cards. He has been a major figure in the poker industry ever since and through the years of the poker boom, the recession, and the slow recovery since Black Friday 2011.

I’m pretty proud that over 37 years in gaming I’ve never had a gaming violation or employee complaints. If I’ve improved the game of poker any at all over the years by rules or things I’ve done, then I feel like I’ve had a successful career.

In 2014 the poker community wholeheartedly welcomed McClelland's induction into the Poker Hall of Fame alongside @Daniel Negreanu. 

Jack McClelland, 63, has seen poker from all sides and from its highest high to its lowest low. A one-time semi-professional bowler who moved out to Las Vegas to help his ailing mother, McClelland ended up with one of the most storied poker operations careers spanning five decades. McClelland has worked with three existing Poker Hall of Famers, Eric Drache, Jack Binion and Bobby Baldwin and was involved at the Bellagio when Mike Sexton and the WPT brought their first tournament there. From tournament directing the WSOP in the 80’s to running the Bellagio poker room from 2002 to 2013, McClelland has been part of a lot of poker history, and has done so from the operator side, starting as an $18 a day dealer and working his way up to running the biggest events and biggest rooms in Las Vegas. McClelland also played a little poker, but only for a brief stint full time. He has worked poker events in Aruba, Cyprus, London, Vienna and Russia. McClelland retired at the end of last year.

(POKER HALL OF FAME ANNOUNCES CLASS OF 2014, WSOP.com)

“Being inducted into the Class of 2014 Poker Hall of Fame is a very exciting prospect and I am sure it will be a very humbling experience. I thank everyone involved in this process and to the WSOP, WPT and all of the great people I have met and the wonderful people I have worked with throughout the years. Thank you for bestowing this honor upon me. I am very grateful.”

As Ty Stewart put it when congratulating the 47th and 48th HOF inductees, Negreanu and McClelland, “both have devoted their full hearts to the game”.

Jack McClelland is in need of a heart transplant and in his own words (from a moving letter to his friend Nolan Dala), has ‘taken a gamble on his life’, declining a heart battery while waiting for a transplant.

Gambling has been my life. Hopefully I made the right decision this time.

We hope so too and look forward to seeing Jack compete again and enjoy many good runs without the burden of actually running the games :)

For a complete listing of Jack McClelland's tournament poker results:

Jack McClelland - Poker index and results of Jack McClellandDiscover and follow Jack McClelland on the poker social network: United States and international ranking, results, tournaments, blog, pictures and endorsements. www.rankinghero.com

Jack McClelland - A Man With Heart - Nolan Dalla    There’s bitter irony to the news Jack McClelland needs a heart transplant. As poker’s grand inquisitor for the past 30 years, Jack has been the very heart of the game for as long as I can remember. I first met Jack when he served as Tournament Director for the World Series of Poker during the 1980s.  Teamed with his longtime confidant Jim Albrecht, together they were the most respected 1-2 duo in the game.  Like pocket kings. Things were much different when they started …www.nolandalla.com

#RKHbio 

Stay tuned for @Nicolas Levi's interview with our #WeeklyHero Jack McClelland!