![Heads-Up-Yosh-Nakano-Header-Final](https://yoshnakano.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Heads-Up-Yosh-Nakano-Header-Final.jpg)
Yosh Nakano was an icon in the high stakes poker world in the LA area for over 20 years and probably no one has the depth of his experiences. His resume:
RESUME
- Feb 1987: Yosh started the 1st hold-em game at Bicycle Casino with Mike Caro, Mark Weitzman, David Hayano & Steve Margulies. The 50-100 game went for several hours and although many high limit lowball players stopped to watch, no one joined the game.
- May 1987: After returning from the WSOP, Yosh convinced the players to play half hold-em and half California lowball. In Vegas, the high-limit players combined limit hold-em and 7 card stud when the action had slowed down. It was a success and often there was a $200-$400 hold-em/$300/$600 lowball and $400-$800 hold-em/$500-$1k lowball with Must Moves.
- 1988 Bicycle Cheating Scandal: A Skeleton With Flesh – Yosh Nakano
- In the fall of 1988, Yosh hosted the Yosh Nakano Invitational Golf Tournament series. The 1st & 2nd were hosted by Caesars Tahoe at the Edgewood Country Club. The 3rd & 4th were held at Pebble Beach playing that course, Spyglass and the Links at Spanish Bay. The 5th year, they played at the Ojai Country Club.
- 1991: With partner Stephen Wolff, Yosh took over the high limit section at the Regency Casino. Until the casino closed near the end of the year, the Regency had the biggest games in the LA area spreading $400-$800 hold-em/$500-$1000 lowball daily. The games would go for days on end.
- At the Regency, they introduced the wireless phone and comped food in the high-limit section. Both ideas were eventually implemented by the Bike and Commerce.
- 1996/1997: Yosh took over the high-limit section at the Crystal Park Casino under Rouben Kandilian. Although the high-limit section was busy and profitable, Rouben and the casino didn’t fare very well and was shut down by state regulators in the fall of 1997.
- In 1996, during Magic Johnson’s Midsummer Night Charity game, Eric Drache put together a $400-$800 stud game with Larry Flynt and Jerry Buss in the conference room at the Forum. This would develop into the Larry game that would be the biggest game on a regular basis. 3-4 days a week, we would play $1500-$3000 stud for 6 hours and the final 2 hours would be $2000-$4000. The 2 hours of $2k-$4k would play considerably bigger that the 6 hours of the lower limit. An average win or loss was $100k and over $200k was either a good night or bad night depending on the perspective.
Many players of note played in the game including Woody Harrelson, John Y. Brown, former governor of Kentucky and the Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise, Jerry Buss of the Lakers, John Horne, manager of Mike Tyson, and Roger and Michael King of King World Productions. The game ended in July 2000 with the opening of the Hustler Casino.
- When the Hustler opened in July 2000, Yosh formed and ran the banking group. His company was eventually replaced by Network M, owned by John Park and currently the owner of the Parkwest Bicycle Casino.
- In February 2002, Yosh took over as the general manager of the Hustler. During his tenure, he spread $1k-$2k stud, $400-$800 mix, $200-$400 HOE (an acronym for hold-em, Omaha 8 or better, 8 or better stud), $80-$160 HO (hold-em and Omaha 8 or better) hosted by Jean Robert Bellande, $75 stud hosted by Diane Nguyen, & 2 $40-$80 hold-em.
- Cheating at the Hustler: Cheating At The Hustler – Yosh Nakano
- In March 2003 Yosh started as the high limit host at the Bicycle Casino. During the 8 years, the primary game was $400-$800 HORSE (hold-em, Omaha 8 or better, razz, stud, 8 or better stud) with good friend Jerry Buss.
- Spring 2005, Yosh played in the inaugural invitational 64 player NBC National Heads-up Championship.
- In the summer of 2005, Yosh, Steve Wolff, & Frank Hong launched the online poker site PokerBlue. Despite having a hedge fund invest $50 million and its plan to bring Doyle’s Room back to the US market, it met a slow but inevitable death starting in January 2007 when the Federal government shut down Neteller which was its only funding source.
- Also that summer, Yosh organized the 64 player $10k buy-in Live at the Bike Heads-up Championship.
- In the spring of 2006, Yosh was invited to play in the CBS Intercontinental Poker Championship. The $500,000 freeroll invitational was sponsored by Party Poker. The field of 21 players representing their home country, Yosh represented Japan and was the Champion despite being beaten by Tony G. in the preliminary round. The Finals was a best of 3 heads-up format between Tony G. and Yosh with Tony taking the 1st match and Yosh battling back to win the final 2.
- In the spring of 2007, Yosh was invited again to play in the NBC National Heads-up Championship. He was eliminated in the 1st round by the eventual runner-up Chad Brown when his pocket kings took a bad beat from Chad’s Kc2c on a 9,9, 2 flop. A deuce on the river de facto eliminated Yosh.
- Yosh created and organized the International Poker Players Association (IPPA) Monte Carlo Championship with 8 hours scheduled on CBS for the summer of 2010. This would be a $250k buy-in limited to 40 players. As most of the sponsors would be online poker sites, the project ended with Black Friday in 2010 when the Federal government shut down the remaining sites operating in the U.S. ProProductions, which was the production company that went on to hold the $300k Super High-Rollers Tournaments.
- Yosh also devised a tournament format called the Equity Re-buy Tournament Shoot-out as a satellite for seats into his Monte Carlo Championship. Eventually leading to a $10k tournament, players could enter at the $100 level or the $1000 level. Mo Fathi used this idea to create the multi-day re-entry tournament which has had great success.
- Upon leaving the Bike in spring of 2011, Yosh launched MagicalGSH LLC, a distribution company for Cellgevity which had given him a new lease on life: My Testimonial on Cellgevity – Yosh Nakano. He’s enthusiastic about the product that turned around the decline of his mental and physical health and is convinced it is the best in a multi-billion dollar health supplement industry.
- After leaving the casino business, he rebuilt his bankroll starting with the $10-$20 EO (eight or better stud & Omaha 8 or better) at the Hollywood Park Casino. He moved up to the $40-$80 Omaha 8 or better and then the $80 mixed games.
- During this period, he also started playing home games in the DTLA (downtown L.A.) area.
- Claim to Fame: Table massages in the poker rooms started getting to be getting mainstream. Players would turn their chair around the primarily get a massage on their shoulders and back. This system transitioned into the home games. After over a year, a hostess asked Yosh if he wanted a massage. He said sure, and she asked him to turn his chair around. “What is we don’t?” he replied. She looked confused and asked, “What do you mean?” “Just sit down behind me,” he instructed. Voila, the straddle massage had been invented. It may have been done sooner or somewhere else but he had never seen it or heard of it before that moment. It’s been the standard ever since and he always ponders if only he could have patented the concept.
- In 2016, he had to move and decided to move to DTLA and started his own home game which is still running.
- He played in a lot of celebrity charity tournaments and thought that they needed more corporate donations so he created, produced and launched the Celebrity Poker Gala Season 1 which was on Amazon Prime.
- In January 2020, he produced Celebrity Poker Gala Season 2 but the pandemic disrupted its post-production. Episode 1 is on Amazon Prime and more episodes will be posted. The concept has many merits and sooner or later, its time will come.
- Using this peer-reviewed article: Endogenous Deficiency of Glutathione | Magical GSH, Yosh began a marketing campaign but faced the challenges of competing against Big Pharma. His business grew but not at the pace or breadth that he would have liked considering its potential in the multi-billion dollar industry of health supplements
- Current projects include the “Friends of Jerry Buss” documentary and the podcast “Heads-up with Yosh” beginning on Jan. 8th, 2024.
INTRODUCTION