Tom McEvoy is a Poker Guru. He was born, and grew up in, the rather conservative city of Grand Rapids, Michigan.
So how did this former accountant wind up in the anything-but-conservative world of poker? Tom was tired of working for other people and got the best break of his accounting career - he got fired. He was already in his 30s and ready to take a chance on something new, namely a poker career.
This all came about because of his grandmother. He grew up playing penny ante poker with her, starting when he was only five years old. Grandma used to beat the sock...
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Tom McEvoy is a Poker Guru. He was born, and grew up in, the rather conservative city of Grand Rapids, Michigan.
So how did this former accountant wind up in the anything-but-conservative world of poker? Tom was tired of working for other people and got the best break of his accounting career - he got fired. He was already in his 30s and ready to take a chance on something new, namely a poker career.
This all came about because of his grandmother. He grew up playing penny ante poker with her, starting when he was only five years old. Grandma used to beat the socks off of Tom and his brothers. She taught them how to play, and staked them about $1 each to play on, and then proceeded to win it back off of them. It was either get better or keep losing to grandma. They all got better. In fact, Tom and his two brothers started to run their own poker games at their house. They played with each other as well as the neighborhood kids. His mother would often receive phone calls from irate mothers complaining about the McEvoy boys. His mother usually replied: “If your little Billy was stupid enough to play poker with my boys, he got exactly what he deserved.” After a phone call like this, she would then chew her boys out for playing with little Billy and tell them not to invite him back to any future games. About a week would go by and little Billy would apologize for his mother’s phone call and beg the McEvoy boys to let him back in the game. They usually did, with the same results for little Billy - but no more phone calls from mom.
After losing his last job in the corporate world, he decided to do something completely different. He had spent a week in Las Vegas a few months prior to his dismissal, and won about $1,000 in the poker games there. Since his salary at that time was only $18,000 per year, he thought there might be something to this poker after all. He spent a year flying back and forth from Grand Rapids to Las Vegas, before deciding to take a shot at a full-time professional poker career. He convinced his wife that this was a good path to take, and broke the news to their three young children. When telling his parents and assorted friends and relatives, he spent most of the discussion trying to convince everyone that he had not lost his mind.
He arrived in Las Vegas with one wife, three kids, three cats, a U-Haul trailer that said “Vegas or Bust” on the back, and a firm desire to succeed. Four years later, in 1983, he won poker’s ultimate prize: The World Series of Poker.
After 25 years, Tom still loves playing poker and living in Las Vegas. He won three additional World Series titles, but he’s probably better known today as a “Poker Guru”, teacher and writer.
Tom McEvoy has authored over 13 books on the subject.
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