To the next lawyer who finds himself on the opposing side of a divorce case from Waco attorney Dick McCall, here are some words of advice: If he pulls his lucky Baylor University baseball cap low over his eyes and starts chomping feverishly on a cigar, he is probably bluffing.

That advice is also good for anyone who might find themselves on the other side of a poker table from McCall, who, as it turns out, has a pretty decent poker face and is equally good at trying cases and drawing aces.

Luckily for McCall, most of the 2,707 players who ponied up $1,000 to enter the seniors event at the 40th annual World Series of Poker at the Rio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas in late June didn’t know his secret.

Dick McCall, wearing his lucky Baylor baseball cap, recently finished eighth in the seniors event at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. (Rod Aydelotte photo)

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McCall, 62, came in eighth out of all those poker players and brought home $56,903 after playing a total of 32 hours of Texas hold ’em poker over the three-day tournament. The winner took home $437,358 out of a total pot of $2.4 million.

“Being in that tournament was like being in trial,” McCall said. “There were long days — we played 13 hours a day the first two days — and you have to think on your feet and make quick decisions. And there is a certain amount of bluffing that goes along with poker and practicing law.”

McCall’s friends, Richie and Tommy Renschler, went with the McCalls to Vegas and also entered the tournament, coming in 709th and 723rd, respectively. Richie Renschler said he and his brother had to talk McCall into entering the poker showdown.

“We had to talk him into going, and then we had to talk him into entering, and then he did all the winning,” Richie Renschler said. “He did fantastic. We play together all the time and we go to Louisiana to play quite a bit, but this is the best he has ever done.”

It was Renschler, not McCall, who gave away the signs that McCall is bluffing.

“Dick is a very good bluffer,” he said. “I guess he got it because of his attorney background. I’ve seen him win more hands with absolutely terrible hands than anyone else. He has bluffed more people, it is unbelievable.”

Longest 2 minutes

In one hand during the second-day marathon session — which McCall said was the longest two minutes of his life — he went all in, putting his entire stack of chips in a pot that had grown to $200,000. He was bluffing. He had nothing.

But the lone remaining player studied whether to stay in the hand for two long, agonizing minutes, gazing alternately at his cards, the pot and McCall. As he waited, McCall said he pulled his Baylor cap down a bit to hide his lying eyes and went to work on his cigar.

“I knew Dick was bluffing because the longer that guy stalled, the more Dick was chewing on his cigar,” Renschler said. “That was a dead giveaway to me that Dick was bluffing. But it worked and we all just had a great time.”

McCall, a Baylor graduate and the son of former Baylor president Abner McCall, also credits his lucky Baylor baseball cap for his success.

“I’m going to tell (Baylor baseball coach) Steve Smith that at least the Baylor baseball cap made it to the World Series,” McCall said laughing, quickly realizing that his joke may have been too harsh. “Let’s just say that the team will make it next year but the hat made it this year.”

But what would McCall’s father, a former FBI agent, Baylor law school dean and professor, Texas Supreme Court justice and president and chancellor of the nation’s largest Baptist University, think of his gambling ways? McCall smiled and said his father, who died in June 1995, would have enjoyed his success.

“My dad was involved in more than a few friendly games of poker while he was trying to work his way through law school,” McCall said.

“They call it Baptist poker,” said Waco attorney Galen Edwards, one of seven other lawyers who shares offices with McCall. “That’s when you go out of town to play.”

‘Ace magnet’

Most of the other lawyers in McCall’s office kept up with his poker exploits through an Internet feed of the tournament. They all were excited and made plans after McCall survived the first two rounds to get him to treat them all to lunch. After he came in eighth, they upgraded those plans to a weekend fishing trip, attorney Don Raybold said.

At one point, McCall had amassed about $600,000 worth of chips, and some of his more friendly rivals at the table started calling him “ace magnet” for his good fortune drawing the high card, he said. Once you are in the tournament, you stay in until you go bust or win all the chips.

McCall’s wife, Jill, watched much of the tournament but spent time with their son, Harvey, and his girlfriend while the games went on. She was awakened by several late-night phone calls that she assumed would be her husband saying he had just been eliminated. To the contrary and to both of their disbelief, he was calling during a break to report that he was still playing, she said.

“Dick is a good card player, and he knows the odds,” Jill McCall said. “But obviously, you are talking about a national tournament, with people from all over the country. When he made it through the first day, that was a big win right there. That was cool that he just made it through the first day.”

twitherspoon@wacotrib.com

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