Those who are aware of Richard Nixon’s poker playing might know about his having played while a Naval officer stationed in the south Pacific during WWII, including perhaps the curious detail that money won by Nixon from those games of draw and stud and sent home to his wife, Pat, would later be used to help fund his initial Congressional campaign in 1946.
Once he’d begun his political career, Nixon continued to play poker with fellow Congressmen in weekly games, and would continue playing those games -- albeit less frequently -- during his two terms as Dwight Eisenhower’s Vice President (although he never played with Ike, himself a skilled player by most accounts).