Champion poker player McClelland dies

Monday, July 24, 2000 | 9:52 a.m.

For Alma McClelland, poker was as much a social event as it was a means of winning money.

She would dress in the finest of fashions, which often included a stylish hat, as she made regular appearances throughout the 1980s and 1990s at the World Series of Poker at Binion's Horseshoe.

And McClelland played as well as she dressed, winning the women's world seven-card stud championship in 1989 and making the final table three other times in that event.

For many years, she was the World Series all-time women's money leader.

Alma McClelland, who also played regularly in open tournament events, placing twice in the money against the world's best male players, died of a lung ailment July 16 in Las Vegas. She was 78.

Services for McClelland, wife of former World Series of Poker Coordinator and fellow poker player Jack McClelland, were Saturday in her native Ohio. She was a Las Vegas resident for 25 years.

"She brought an element of class to the game and was a devoted advocate of poker," said Jim Albrecht, former longtime director of the World Series of Poker, who now, along with Jack McClelland, is a consultant for the One Million Pound Deal tournament on the Isle of Man off the coast of England.

"Her favorite game was seven-card stud, and she long felt comfortable playing at limits ranging from $30-$60 to $75-$150."

McClelland was a regular at the Mirage and Bellagio card rooms in recent years.

Before McClelland won the 1989 women's world crown and the then-record $18,600 first prize, she had established herself as a formidable competitor at the World Series.

McClelland placed fifth in the women's event in 1986 and third in 1987.

In 1986 she also came within an eyelash of becoming one of the few women in the tournament's history to win an open event when she finished second in the seven-card razz game. Two years later, she placed sixth in that event.

McClelland also had a sixth place finish in the women's stud world title game in 1990.

A year earlier McClelland, then with $35,480 in lifetime World Series winnings, moved into first place on the women's money list, surpassing Betty Carey, who had $35,050 in lifetime WSOP winnings.

McClelland eventually won $63,960 at the World Series. But by the mid-1990s, as more women were placing in the money and winning open events, McClelland lost her spot at the top of the women's money list. Still she remains among the top 20.

Born Alma Hoying on Oct. 1, 1921, she owned a party store in Sidney, Ohio, which she gave up in the mid-1970s to move to Las Vegas and become a professional poker player. She met Jack, her second husband, in a card room and the couple married in September 1981.

Jack McClelland officiated nearly every major poker tournament in Las Vegas during the 1980s and 1990s but, in 1988, he took a brief break from those duties to enter the $5,000-buy-in limit seven-card stud world championship, where he finished eighth and won $11,850.

A week earlier, Alma placed sixth in the razz event, winning $7,680.

Alma McClelland also owned a local food business and was an ex-cigarette smoker who kicked the habit in the early 1990s.

In addition to her husband, McClelland is survived by four sons, James Kerber and Jack Kerber, both of Ohio, Gerrold Kerber of Arizona and Jeff Kerber of Las Vegas; and five brothers, Paul Hoying, Robert Hoying, Cliff Hoying, Tom Hoying and Ludwig Hoying, all of Ohio.

Hites Funeral Service in Henderson handled the local arrangements.