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Tom McEvoy Wins World Series of Poker Champions Invitational
1983 Winner Outlasts the Field of World Champions

Perhaps it’s fitting that Tom McEvoy is the champion of champions.

McEvoy, the 1983 World Series of Poker champ, outlasted Robert Varkonyi heads up to win the inaugural WSOP Champions Invitational. For his win, McEvoy was awarded the Binion Cup by Jack Binion himself, and a 1970 red Corvette.

“I said that I guarantee that nobody wants it more than me,” McEvoy told Card Player. “I’ve had a long and very successful career and have won many tournaments, but I haven’t won as many lately as I’d like to, and I felt like I really needed to re-establish that I could play at my advanced age.”

In an era when tournament poker has captured the imaginations and aspirations of millions of people, McEvoy literally wrote the first notable book on tournament poker, letting the public know about the vast differences in strategy between tourney play and cash games.

Nowadays, most people who participate in such prestigious tournaments as the main event of the WSOP qualify via a satellite, and McEvoy holds the distinction of being the first main-event champion to get into the tournament thanks to a satellite.

McEvoy was ahead of his time, and in the inaugural Champions Invitational, he was ahead of his very prestigious peers.

“I had a lot of fun because I busted Doyle along the way. That’s always exciting,” said McEvoy. “Everybody shoots for the man. I’m the one who got him this time.”

The world champs might have been playing for only a trophy and a car, but if there was any doubt about how seriously they were taking this event, the nine-hour final table likely erased that skepticism.

Dan Harrington finished third and Jim Bechtel finished fourth.

“It was definitely an older crowd who dominated,” said McEvoy.

This was the first year that such an event was played. Due to the large number of fans that it brought to the Rio, tournament organizers said that it was very possible that they could bring back the invitational tournament in future years.

Thang Luu Completes Historic Repeat
Wins Another Omaha Eight-or-Better Bracelet

Former table-games dealer Thang Luu says that this victory tops even his first bracelet win.

“I was surprised I won again,” said Luu. “I mean, I was very confident going to the final table, but I had fewer chips than last year. Last year, I was the chip leader for most of the tournament, and it was kind of like no problem.”

This year was a different story.

Luu entered final-table play third in chips, but with less than half of the stack of the chip leader at the time, Robert Price. Yet, Luu was able to outlast the final competitors of the 918-player starting field — the largest ever for a live Omaha eight-or-better event — to win his second bracelet.

“In the future, poker historians will debate poker’s greatest accomplishments,” wrote WSOP Media Director Nolan Dalla in a press release. “This feat is certainly among them.”

In 2008, Luu outlasted a field of 833 players. In his 2007 runner-up performance, there were 534 players competing for the bracelet. The robust size of these tourneys certainly make his three-year stretch of results that much more impressive.

In comparison, Johnny Chan’s feat of winning the main event in back-to-back years in 1987 and 1988, and then finishing runner-up to Phil Hellmuth in 1989, was accomplished in fields of 152, 167, and 178 players, respectively.

Luu plans on playing in the main event this year, as well as in a handful of other events — including a few more in Omaha and a mixed event.
“If I win more, I’ve got to play more, right?” Luu asked with a laugh.
He banked $263,135 for his win.

2009 World Series of Poker Off to a Record-Breaking Start
Phil Ivey, Steve Sung, and Jason Mercier All Claim Bracelets

There was some anxiety heading into this year’s World Series, as people were worried that a downtrodden economy would severely hamper the turnout. But that anxiety turned out to be unfounded, at least in the beginning of the Series, as the first three open events all set WSOP records.

The $40,000 no-limit hold’em event, commemorating the 40th year of the WSOP, attracted 201 high rollers, creating a prize pool of more than $7.7 million — the largest ever for any non-main-event tournament at the World Series.


In the very next event, a $1,500 Omaha eight-or-better tournament, 918 hopefuls came out to try to win a bracelet. That is the largest field for any live Omaha tournament ever played.

Then, there was the “Stimulus Special.” Designed to attract new faces to the World Series, this $1,000 no-limit hold’em event was an unprecedented success. It attracted 6,012 entrants over two sold-out starting days. It was easily the largest live event ever, with the exception of WSOP main events, and tournament organizers said that it would’ve surpassed even those tournaments if they had added a third starting day.

“I think it says a lot about the health of poker,” said WSOP Communications Director Seth Palansky. “I think the poker community is very healthy if you offer good value and good service. We’ve stepped that up the past couple years.”

While the World Series appears to be attracting a large number of first-timers to the Rio this year, the pros are showing why they still ought to be feared. Phil Ivey took down event No. 8, $2,500 deuce-to-seven, for his sixth bracelet; Steve Sung, after making three WSOP final tables in previous years, finally got the monkey off his back and won his first bracelet in the Stimulus Special, earning $771,106; and Jason Mercier won his first bracelet in a $1,500 pot-limit Omaha event, putting himself over $3 million in career tournament earnings.

For a complete recap of the first several events of the World Series, turn to Page 24.

PokerStars Launches Italian Poker Tour
Another Tour Added to its Stable

PokerStars is having so much fun running poker tours that it decided, why not have another?

The largest online poker site in the world recently announced that it was launching the Italian Poker Tour.

“PokerStars is really happy with the developments in live and online poker in Italy,” said Fabio Angeli Bufalini, Italian country manager for the site. “The record-breaking turnout for the San Remo leg of the PokerStars season five EPT [event] makes us hopeful that the PokerStars Italian Poker Tour will arouse huge interest in Italy and all over Europe.”

The IPT joins a number of PokerStars-sponsored tours, including the European Poker Tour, the Asia Pacific Poker Tour, the Latin American Poker Tour, and the Russian Poker Tour. PokerStars is also the official sponsor of the World Cup of Poker and the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure.

Italian poker pros Dario Minieri and Luca Pagano are members of Team PokerStars.
PokerStars.it, the Italian-only version of PokerStars, was launched in October 2008 after the site was granted a license by the Italian government.