One year after Dr. Roger Tilley’s death, his poker buddy reveals he was in it for the action
Rebecca Tilley of Benton, Arkansas wrote in to MySaline to share the surprising legacy of her father, a well-known medical doctor in Benton, Arkansas, through the eyes of his poker buddy.
Read more below.
She introduces the letter:
My father, Roger Lewis Tilley, died one year ago today. We miss him, terribly. One of the small comforts during grief is learning about his life through the lens of people who knew him outside of his fatherly role. To honor his memory today, I’d like to share a meaningful tribute one of his friends, Ryan Stampke, shared with us last year:
To give you a little background on how I met Doc — we met about 24 years ago, when I was just a college student who had moved from Hawaii to Arkansas for school. We met, of all places, at a poker game — and this was way before poker was popular or on TV. We played low-stakes home games around Little Rock and became fast friends. We both loved poker, and we were both nerds at heart, fascinated by the game and the world around it.
I once read a medical study that said people actually live longer if they have a regular social gathering — something like a weekly game of cards, golf, knitting, or dominoes. If you’re over 65, and you get together with friends once a week, it can stave off loneliness, keep your mind sharp, and even lower your risk of death by about 16%.
I think Doc understood that instinctively. He never missed a weekly poker game. But he didn’t just play anywhere — he only wanted to play with his friends. That was part of what made him special.
Since hearing the news [of his death], I’ve thought a lot about what made Doc tick, and I keep coming back to this — Doc loved the action. If you’re not familiar with that term, I wasn’t either at first. Years ago, some buddies and I were sitting around a poker table talking about what we’d do if we ever won the Powerball. One friend said he’d go gamble every day — not because he needed the money, but because he loved the action. The thrill of being in the game. That was Doc. He didn’t gamble because he needed the money — he gambled because he loved the action, the excitement, the camaraderie that came with it.
They say if you really want to know what someone’s made of, go gamble with them. Winning and losing at the table has a way of revealing a person’s true heart. I sat at the same table as Doc many, many times, and I want to share a few things about him that not everyone might know.
As a gambler, he never loaned money and never borrowed money. I think the world would have a lot fewer problems if everyone followed that rule. He never complained about someone else’s luck or cursed his own. He just took things as they came, with quiet patience and humility.
As a poker player, he was considered tight. If Doc was in a hand against you, you could bet he probably had you beat. He didn’t bluff often, and he was nearly impossible to bluff himself. He only played good cards, and he liked having that mathematical edge — that was Doc’s way.
But Doc wasn’t just a poker player. He was a nerd long before being a nerd was cool. He loved comic books, Marvel and DC movies, and we even used to secretly talk about the Harry Potter books. He loved model trains and driving out to watch real ones go by. Everyone knows he was an Eagle Scout, but when he earned that rank, it meant going camping and hiking for a week at a time — the real deal.
And not many people know this, but Doc had Masterpoints in bridge from playing in tournaments — a serious achievement that put him in the top 1% of bridge players worldwide.
As a father and a grandfather, Doc absolutely adored his kids and grandkids. Nothing made him light up more than talking about them — or talking about taking them to Disney.
Let me finish with a story that sums up Doc for me. After knowing him for about four or five years, I realized I had only ever seen him wear one or two shirts — mainly a maroon one, and every now and then, a green one. In the poker world, sometimes people have a lucky shirt, so I just assumed that was Doc’s.
Then, one week, we all went down to Tunica for a poker tournament. I saw Doc in the hotel lobby, wearing his usual maroon shirt. The bellhop was helping him with his luggage, and hanging on the cart were six more identical maroon shirts! I couldn’t believe it — all those years, I thought he just had one lucky shirt. Turns out, he had a whole wardrobe of lucky shirts.
That was Doc — steady, consistent, and full of quiet surprises. I’ll miss him dearly, and I know everyone who knew him, or ever sat around the table with him will too.
Sincerely, Ryan Stampke
