The first player to ride a satellite buy-in to the WSOP championship in 1983, Tom McEvoy has written 12 poker books, won more than $2 million and taken a spot on the roster at PokerStars. We caught up with him to chat about winning the WSOP, backing smoke-free tournaments and judging poker books.
How did you first start playing poker?
"I was about 5 years old on my grandmas knee - literally. We played poker and a lot of those crazy wild-card games. I have two brothers and shed spot us each a buck and then clean us out. The gambling gene must have skipped a generation. She loved to bet on horses and play canasta and bridge for money. My parents couldnt care less about it."
Didnt you get in trouble in grade school for playing poker?
"We organized our own poker games at our house. At the time we got in the most trouble, I was in sixth or seventh grade. Wed play different kinds of poker games, and my brothers and I were by far the best players in the neighborhood. Wed just clean out neighborhood kids all the time. Were not talking big money here, but in the 1950s, two or three bucks was a big amount. What would happen was little Jimmys mother would get on the phone and complain to my mother, like, Mrs. McEvoy, what do you intend to do about this? And she said, Well, if your little Jimmy is stupid enough to play poker with my boys, then he got exactly what he deserved. Click. Then shed call us in and say, I dont want you ever playing with little Jimmy ever again! Do you hear me? We let him back in the game, but not when my mother was around. He never said a word about it again."
When did you start taking poker more seriously?
"Not really until after college. Once or twice I played games for small amounts in dorm rooms, where the most you could win or lose was 15 bucks. But, after college, there was this little club called the Polish Falcons. Im not Polish, but I knew a couple guys who went there. They had this Friday night game that was about $2 a game. They invited me, and the very first time I went there, I won like $15, which doesnt seem like much now, but back then ... So, I kept coming back and got to know a lot of these people and started organizing our own home games. Many times wed start playing on a Friday night and go all the way to Sunday night. I was already married, and Id have a lot of the games in my basement. My wife and I took a small rake to pay for food and stuff. I was making more running in that game than my weekly salary, and it was only $5-limit."
How did you leave your job and go after poker full-time?
"When I started out, it was a four-man accounting department, and I did pretty good work. I got promoted and became office manager, where I had all these little old ladies who had been entrenched for years. When I wasnt their boss, I got along fine with them. After I became their boss, they got annoyed with me. Politically, I made a mess out of things, and sometimes on Monday morning, I wasnt too fresh from these weekend poker games. Id forget to shave and things like that. I was just quirky enough that I stood out - but not in a positive way. The day I got fired, my boss brought me into his office and said, Tom, I couldnt have had a better accountant than you. The office politics just did me in. I could see it coming - I cleaned out my desk a few days prior."
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