CONTACT AND BIO

Bill joined the USAF in 1965, right after graduating from Bishop Heelan Catholic High School and served in the Far East during the Vietnam War.

I am a huge fan of the Iowa Hawkeyes football team and all other Iowa college team sports!
 

Bill’s hobbies include writing, golf, racquetball, bowling, archery, playing Pinochle and smoking an occasional cigar with the best fish-story-telling friends that gather at the Mission Pipe and Cigar store in Pleasanton CA.

I have enjoyed playing poker tournaments, especially at the World Series Of Poker in Las Vegas, NV; In 2006, I played in the Seniors NLH Poker Tournament along with 1, 184 hopefuls and it had a prize pool of $1,184,000 that wouls be paid out to the top 99 players out of the 1,184.  I finished 62nd out of 1,184 players and was the first in our poker group to ever cash at the WSOP. In 2007, 6, 358 players started the Main Event of the 2007 World Series of Poker;  I awoke on a Tuesday morning, prior to the event, and feeling lucky, I flew up to Las Vegas with no reservations, entered a $550 Super Satellite with 427 players.  After about 11 hours of play, 20 seats valued at $10,000 were awared to 20 players to play in the Main Event and I was one of the top twenty players!  My lucky feeling was spot on as I won a seat to play in the biggest card game on Earth!  The WSOP had four starting days in order to accomodate the super-large field, so I selected Day four; It was a dream come true for me.

So my first day of play, which was Day 1D and I finished 79th out of 1,783!  I had called down to the guys at Mission Pipe and reported that I was down (we started with 10,000 in chips) to 6,000 in chips and Mark G gave me some good advice and a pep talk; I finished at 2AM the next morning with almost 98,000 in chips!  What a rush!  I played a couple of more days and got knocked out at about 912th out of 6,358 and out of the money but since the top 660 were being paid, I was very close to making the money.  None the less, this was a lifetime dream, playing in the Main Event! 

Two of my tablemates were Dario Minieri who has gone on to win a gold bracelet; and Hevad "Rain" Khan, who finished in 6^th place in the 2007 Main Event, winning more than $950,000!

Papa Bill" Ballew currently lives in Northern California to be near his children, Julie and Nathan plus his three grand children: Alexis, Hunter and Sierra.

I have written five books including:

The Unbeatable Pinochle System by William “Papa Bill” Ballew (Published 1991); which was advertised and sold through US Card Playing Card Company – the Bicycle card people;

Cigar-versations, The Godfather Chronicles by William “Papa Bill” Ballew (Published 2008)

Poems of a Heart Held Captive by William “Papa Bill” Ballew (Published 2009)

Papa Bill’s 1001 Party Favorites Joke Book by William “Papa Bill” Ballew (Published 2010)

THE JOKE VAULT by William “Papa Bill” Ballew (Published 2010)