Picture this. A man brings a brown grocery sack to a game, takes a seat and then dumps the entire contents of the bag – $25,000 – onto the poker table into one big pile. Bundles of hundred-dollar bills tumble onto the green felt. The man has everyone in the game covered at least five times over.

The date is winter 1996, the place Resorts International, Atlantic City, the game pot-limit Texas hold’em. The man posts his $5 blind and is dealt a hand. What happens next defies the imagination. He becomes an instant legend in poker circles. He proceeds to raise on each successive round of betting.