At the beginning of September, the poker world learned that Mike Sexton, one of the game’s greatest ambassadors, had been battling prostate cancer that had spread to other organs. As a result, the Poker Hall of Famer began in-home hospice a month earlier.
Unfortunately, Sexton’s longtime friend Linda Johnson shared that the poker legend passed away on Sunday.
Mike Sexton passed away peacefully at home earlier today surrounded by family members. He appreciated all the wonde… https://t.co/Z3Tt2SNZhz
— Linda Johnson (@FirstLadyPoker)
Final Chapter: A Return to partypoker
Sexton has spent decades in the game as a player, ambassador, and commentator, just to name a few of the many hats he wore. He was universally loved by colleagues, fans, and his fellow players, and his immense contributions to the game were recognized when he was the sole member of the Poker Hall of Fame’s Class of 2009. Over the next decade, he continued to add to his poker résumé both on and off the felt.
In 2017, after 15 years working for the WPT as a commentator and all-around ambassador, Sexton moved onto a role as chairman of partypoker. He left Tony Dunst to take his place alongside Vince Van Patten as a commentator.
“It’s been fantastic,” he said after a few months on the new job. “It’s great for me, it’s just a fancy name for a nice ambassador.
“I love the World Poker Tour. It was hard leaving that job but it was just an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.”
Sexton had a long history with partypoker, as he’d been a part of the team when it grew into a giant of the industry in the years prior to anti-poker legislation passing in the U.S. In fact, he’s been credited with coming up with the name.
“I was at partypoker from the start, before there was even a name or a single virtual card was dealt,” he said. “I experienced the crazy times of the poker boom when we became the No. 1 site in the world. I remember people sleeping on the office floor when we were all working 24/7 to get the software launched, and I remember the first partypoker Million on a cruise ship which overlaid $500K.”
A colleague from that early period, Mike O’Malley, shared on Twitter an anecdote from those fretful, unprofitable days that highlighted Sexton’s dedication to the game and his determination to grow poker into a global phenomenon.
According to O’Malley, partypoker brass was stewing over the $500K loss and vowing to never run another partypoker Million. Sexton convinced them to run it one more time after going on a rant about how successful it was going to be, and with perfectly timed ad campaign built around the newly airing WPT, he was right. The company took off after that, soaring to the industry lead as online poker exploded and poker boom came to fruition.
“I know the general consensus is that others were the catalyst for the poker boom,” O’Malley wrote. “But the reality is, if you knew the story and saw what really went on, the poker boom was happening before Chris Moneymaker ever played a hand of poker. And the person that was most responsible for that was Mike Sexton.”
Back with partypoker starting in 2017, Sexton traveled to events the world over, glad-handed with players, and generally just played the role of ambassador to perfection. That was a theme throughout his time in poker, with countless players pouring out heartfelt stories of great times with Sexton on and away from the felt.
Charitable Focus
Another theme throughout Sexton’s career was a commitment to charity. When he won the WSOP Tournament of Champions for $1 million in 2006, he said he’d be donating half of the money to five different charities.
Sexton saw charitable donations as a way for poker to build goodwill in communities and cast off negative reputations some held for the game.
He championed events like the inaugural $1,000,000 Big One for One Drop — which he min-cashed for $1.1 million — and regularly participated in charity-focused tournaments like the WPT’s Tiger Jam and WSOP’s Salute to Warriors.
“The most ardent adversaries of poker could not be against poker if we were to start donating huge bucks to worthwhile charities,” he said in 2006. “And why not? It’s the right thing to do.”
End of a Poker Life
Sexton once told PokerNews that he “made poker my life” and there’s certainly no other way to describe the decades he spent in the industry. He filled a variety of roles in and around the game, touching countless lives with his gregarious personality, ready humor, and instantly recognizable voice.
According to The Hendon Mob, Sexton amassed $6,708,146 in lifetime live tournament earnings dating back to 1981. In 2016, he had a dream come true when he captured a WPT title by taking down the WPT Montreal Main Event for $317,817. As a result, his name was etched on the prestigious Champions Cup, which earlier this summer was renamed the Mike Sexton WPT Champions Cup in his honor. He called it humbling and the “highest peak” of his career.
Sexton won his first and only gold bracelet at the 1989 World Series of Poker when he took down Event #11: $1,500 Limit Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo for $104,400. He also had two runner-up finishers, four fourth-place finishes, and a dozen more final table appearances. That included ninth in the inaugural Big One for One Drop for $1,109,333, his largest career score.
His trademark sign-off from the WPT broadcasts will ring familiar in the ears of poker fans everywhere and remain his signature quote:
“May all of your cards be live and may all of your pots be monsters.”
PokerNews joins the rest of the poker world in expressing their condolences to Sexton’s family and remembering all he did for the game of poker.