Rodney (Rod) Herm Pardey was born on May 5th, 1945 in Vincennes, Indiana and currently resides in Las Vegas, Nevada. Initially Rod Pardey was a professional bowler and made a brief appearance on the PBA tour. During 1997 he used his poker proceedings and bought a shut down bowling alley in south Seattle, named Skyway Park Bowl. He is now the co-proprietor of the business with his younger brother, David Pardey. Since then Skyway Park Bowl has expanded and includes a casino and has also hosted a number of PBA tour events.
Advised by a fellow player, he went on a journey to Las Vegas to try his luck. There in the 1970`s Rod Pardey made a name of himself as he rose through the rangs in his favorite game: seven-card stud. He played against skillful challengers such as Danny Robison, Eric Drache, Roger Moore and many more, but it is rumored that those games involved cheating. At the end of the 1970`s Rod Pardey was even ranked as “the number one seven-card stud player in the world” by famous author of poker-playing guidebooks, David Sklansky. He became a regular player for money as high as $1,000-$2,000.
In the beginning of the 1980`s poker saw a great revolution with the popularization of hold 'em and Rod Pardey became isolated from the new poker boom. But to Rod Pardey`s luck, Darche - a good friend of Rod Padrey`s, opened up a well-run cardroom, in which he played with pleasure as it was a place where he could relax and focus on the cards, not on crooked players or crooked dealers. Ever since 1995 he has been playing regularly in Los Angeles, California.
Rod Pardey has taken part in different tournaments such as the World Series of Poker, where he has 2 first place wins, 2 bracelets, 6 final table finishes and 12 money cashes. His first win was in the 22nd World Series of Poker in 1991 - Seven-Card Stud event, where he earned $133,000, and his second win was in the 25th World Series of Poker in 1994 - Seven-Card Stud event, where he won $132,000. Other tournaments include the 2005 Bellagio Friday/Saturday No Limit Hold'em Tournament, 2003 National Championship of Poker, and the 2003 Legends of Poker (WPT).
Rod Pardey is the father of the professional poker player and singer/songwriter Rodney (Rod) Erin Pardey, who was born to him on September 14th, 1976. He has two more children - Ryan Joseph (born February 25, 1979 ), and Lucynda Laurynne ( born September 13th,1980). They were from his first marriage with Sandra Marie, but later on he divorced her to marry once again. Rod Pardey remarried to Carmen Guffey, and does not yet have any children form this marriage.