Ed Stackhouse will be remembered. He passed away peacefully at 2:04 in the morning on August 5, 2026, after an unsuccessful attempt to find him a liver transplant. He leaves behind a wife of 30 years, three adult children, one of whom is starting college this fall, and three grandchildren. He was the Godfather to the child of his closest friend Brian Crow, who described him as a steadfast and loving presence for 25 years and a larger than life person who believed in making memories rather than acquiring stuff and always thought of others before himself. That last part will not surprise anyone who knew him.
Most of you reading this will not know the name. That is the nature of the poker world: for every player whose name ends up on a leaderboard or in a results article, there are dozens of others who shaped the game quietly, in private groups and late-night sessions and forums that most people never found. Stack was one of those people. The ones who knew him knew exactly what they had, and they are feeling his absence today in the specific way you feel the loss of someone whose company made everything around them a little better than it would have been otherwise.
I knew him as Stackman, or just Stack. I got to know him before most people had even heard of him, back in the days when we were playing PLO8 together in the DKBlue group on Paradise Poker, long before Black Friday changed everything. I am glad I got those years with him. I am glad I got to know the real Ed before the internet became what it is now and before poker communities scattered to the winds the way they did after April 2011.
The DKBlue Group
To understand Stack, you have to understand the DKBlue Omaha Poker Club and what it was. Gus Corso, known as DkBlue, founded it. Gus was an Omaha addict in the best possible sense of that word, someone who loved the game so completely that he built a private community around it and dedicated himself to teaching anyone who would sit still long enough to learn. He ran games on Paradise Poker, educated players, and created something that felt less like a poker group and more like a school with a card room attached.
When Gus passed away, most groups like that dissolve. The person who built the thing is gone, the energy disperses, the games die out. That did not happen with DKBlue because Stack would not let it happen. He took over leadership of the club and kept it running as a direct tribute to Gus. He kept the games alive. He kept the tradition of teaching alive. He did it because Gus had built something worth preserving and because Stack was exactly the kind of person who understood that a community is not a website or a poker room. It is a set of relationships maintained by people who show up, and Stack always showed up.
The Teacher
Stack was one of the best teachers of PLO8 I ever came across, and I have come across a few. He had been playing Omaha variants since 2003 and he understood the game at a level that most players, even good ones, never quite reach. He thought about it in terms of principles rather than rules, which is the difference between someone who has genuinely figured something out and someone who has just memorized a chart.
He shared strategy across forums over the years, because he genuinely wanted the Omaha poker community to grow. He was not protecting proprietary information. He was trying to make more good PLO8 players exist in the world, which is a distinctly generous thing to want.
Stack’s Infectious Enthusiasm
Stack was one of the most patient teachers of new players learning different poker variants, especially PLO8, I have ever come across, and I have come across a few. He had been playing Omaha variants since 2003 and understood how to patiently guide new players and encourage them to try new games with poker to many being more than no-limit hold’em.
He shared strategy across forums over the years, because he genuinely wanted the Omaha poker community to grow. He was not protecting proprietary information. He was trying to make more good PLO8 players exist in the world, which is a distinctly generous thing to want.
What I want people who did not know him to understand is that the strategy posts and the community building were not the whole of it. Stack had a sense of humor that could light up a chat window, which is a harder thing to pull off than it sounds. Online poker communities before Black Friday had their share of serious, intense people grinding and studying and competing. Stack was serious about the game but he was never humorless about it. He could make you laugh in the middle of a discussion about the relative merits of A-2-3 double-suited versus A-2-A-K, which is the kind of specific skill set that holds a group together over years.
He had genuine enthusiasm. Not the performed enthusiasm of someone who wants you to think they are enjoying themselves, but the real kind, the kind that makes you want to sit down and play another session even when you are tired because the person across the table from you is genuinely glad to be there. That is what he brought to the DKBlue games and to every community he was part of. He made the experience better just by being in it.
I have been inactively part of the DKBlue group for years now. Life, poker careers, geography, and then Black Friday all conspired to reduce what had once been a daily shared experience to something more occasional. But the group never felt dead to me because Stack never let it die. Every time I checked in there was evidence of his presence: a post, a game, a strategy discussion, a piece of his humor landing exactly right. He was the connective tissue.
What He Leaves Behind
The online poker world before Black Friday produced thousands of communities like DKBlue, little pockets of players who found each other through a shared love of a specific game and built something that mattered to them. Most of those communities are gone now, not because the people stopped caring but because the infrastructure that held them together was taken away on a single Friday morning in April 2011. The ones that survived did so because someone in them refused to let go. Stack was that person for DKBlue. He held the line for years after most people would have moved on, and the group is still there, still alive, because of him.
PLO8 is a niche game. It always has been. It attracts a specific kind of player, someone who likes complexity, who does not mind splitting pots, who understands that patience and discipline are more important than aggression and that the nuts are worth waiting for. Stack embodied all of that at the table and in the community he kept alive. He loved a game that most people overlook, and he spent years trying to make more people love it too.
Let that bone go, Stack. You earned the rest. The games we shared meant something then and they mean something now, and anyone who played PLO8 with you is a better player for it. I know I am.
Rest in peace, Ed Stackhouse. Known to all of us as Stackman. Known to some of us as Stack. Known to the DKBlue group as the person who kept the lights on when Gus left us, and kept them on for as long as he could.
Support Ed’s Family
A GoFundMe has been set up to help Ed’s family with funeral expenses and remaining medical expenses from his illness. It is already over 80% of its goal and his family needs every bit of help they can get. If you knew Stack, played with him, or learned from him, please consider donating or sharing the link. His wife of 30 years, three children, and three grandchildren are the ones being helped here. It takes a minute to share and it matters.
Support Ed Stackhouse’s Family on GoFundMe
- Article originally produced at poker.pro.
