Mr. Moss, I have to let you go. These words uttered by Nicholas Dandolos are unfortunetly the lasting impression most people have of this legend of the game. A generation of players have grown up only knowing that “Nick the Greek” was victimized by Johnny Moss in the most famous card game ever played. There is so much more to the man, and his game, though, than five bad months in 1949.   Nicholas Andreas Dandolos was born on the island of Crete in 1883. His beginings were far from humble. From the start of life, Nicholas was in a world of wealth and privilidge. His parents. He was educated at a Greek Evangelical College where he studied philosophy. His personality was such that he was not cut out for a life in the church, neither was he suited to become the next Plato. What he was perfectly at ease with though, was gambling.   Upon turning 18, Nick took his well honed intellect and $150 a week allowance (this was a fortune in 1901) to the United States. While living in Montreal, his prowess at gambling began to manifest itself. He was a natural when it came to dealing with odds and the sort of numbers that would send most people sprinting for the aspirin bottle. In these early days he had also struck up a friendship with Phil Musgrave, a well known jockey of the day. Nick applied his keen mind, along with what information he could glean from Phil, and turned it into a $500,000 profit for one season of betting on the horses.   Nick moved down from the “Great White North” to Chicago. Here he quickly lost the half million he had brought with him. Not one to be daunted by a simple thing like sudden, unexpected poverty he went on, and learned the finer points of cards and dice. It was eerie how well he took to these disciplines. It was almost as if evolution, for one brief moment, had taken a break from turning monkeys into creatures that were not altogether unlike simians, and decided it was going to create a being perfectly suited to survive in a casino. Dandolos was so good and became so respected in the Chicago gambling scene; he was often offered jobs by the casinos. Many figured it was just cheaper to pay him a salary than to let him play. Either way he was going to get their money, it just came down to how much he was going to pocket. Realizing taking a position with a casino would, in effect, be a pay cut, he usually declined.   Time did what time often does, and that is move forward. The legend of “Nick the Greek” continued to grow, but as he became more well known, another equally powerful player was becoming famous in his own right. This player was Johnny Moss. Much like when King Kong and Godzilla in the same general vicinity, its only a matter of time before they fight.   These two poker superpowers dismissed any talk of Detente or other such silly concepts like “mutually assured destruction” and, with the assistance of Benny Binion, played the most famous marathon game of poker in the history of the sport. Most of us know how this ended for Nick. He left the table several million dollars lighter.   Nicholas Andreas Dandolos died nearly penniless on Christmas day in 1966. In his lifetime he had won, and lost over half a billion dollars. He is still respected the world over as one of the greatest figures in the history of gambling.