Tom McEvoy is one of those poker stories where a life-altering event led him into the poker room, and he never left. After getting laid off from his accounting job, Tom started to play poker fulltime. He became a professional in 1978 and is a true legend in the game. He is the 1983 WSOP Main Event Champion and has played poker against every WSOP champion there ever was.

McEvoy has four WSOP bracelets – one for limit hold’em, one for no limit hold’em (main event), one for Razz, and one for limit Omaha. He is a real old-time pro who is dangerous in any variation of the game. With 29 WSOP cashes, and a list the length of your arm of other cashes since the early 80’s, his tournament winnings total over $2.6 million.

McEvoy has shown that he is still a force today by winning a PPT event against 168 other top professionals in March 2005. He is 84th on the all-time tournament money list, and 61st all-time on the WSOP list. Tom can also claim to be the first satellite winner who turned it into a main event championship, and has turned other satellite wins into major cashes.

He was a leader in the crusade which banned smoking in big tournaments. He organized the first non-smoking event and bribed Benny Binion Behnen with poker lessons to make the WSOP a smoke-free environment. He has also written a total of 11 poker books, some with players like T.J. Cloutier, Max Stern, and Brad Daugherty.

McEvoy has kept his profile in the public domain by doing a column for Cardplayer Magazine, and he is sponsored by Pokerstars. He continues to work at his game, and remains an example of how a player can make a good living at poker and be a complete gentleman at the same time.

McEvoy is most comfortable at home where he plays poker online and says that some days he never gets out of his pj’s, which sure beats going into the accounting office every day.

Howard Lederer is one of those elite players that have been on the poker scene for a long time. His first WSOP cash was 20 years ago last month, and he’s one of the best no-limit hold’em players in the history of the game. But that’s not me talking; that’s Doyle Brunson’s opinion of him.

Remember the geeky chess club guys in high school? Geeky stereotype notwithstanding, Howard had a real passion and talent for chess as a young man and moved to New York after college to pursue his passion for the game. It was in the backrooms of NYC chess clubs that Howard soon discovered the magic of poker games, and the rest as they say is history.

Howard’s record of achievement speaks for itself with over $3.3 million in tournament winnings alone. He has two WSOP bracelets and two WPT titles, and was the 2003 WPT player of the year. Not a bad collection of awards for the trophy case. He’s also been a high-stakes cash game player since 1994, and his total winnings can only be speculated upon.

When the poker boom hit in 2003, Howard contributed to poker’s expansion in the form of television commentary and instructional material. With proven students like his sister Annie Duke tearing up Vegas cash games, he quickly cashed in on instructional books and DVD’s as his celebrity continued to grow. His calm demeanour makes him one of the most trusted poker personalities on the scene today; a great image to have when you’re selling poker strategy. He’s an advocate for poker etiquette, and even refused to shake the hand of antagonist Tony Guoga after being knocked out of a tournament by him.

His big years were from 2000 to 2004, when he won the bulk of his tournament winnings, but he has shown consistency since the late 80’s. He hasn’t been a dominant force on the tournament scene over the last few years but his many responsibilities to the game keep him away from the tables more than in the past. Not to mention his passion for golf and Grateful Dead concerts (he’s rumoured to have attended over 125).

Lederer is also part of the design team for Full Tilt Poker and he provides commentary and game analysis on FullTiltPoker.net’s “Learning from the Pros”. You’ll also find him on FSN’s “Poker Superstars Invitational Tournament” or running his Poker Fantasy Camp with other Full Tilt Poker stars. He can be found at most big events going on in Vegas, but the one place you don’t want to find the “Professor” is sitting across from you at a poker table.

Ask any number of male amateur poker players which poker pro they want to be like and odds are you’ll hear Gus Hansen’s name come up at least a few times. Why wouldn’t it? The man they call ‘The Great Dane’ is a poker champion who has won millions of dollars playing poker, is loved and feared by poker players worldwide, and was named the sexiest poker player in People Magazine’s 2004 Sexiest Man alive issue.

Before he became a famous poker player, Hansen was a world-class backgammon player and a youth tennis champ. Before choosing poker as a career Hansen tried to make ends meet as a professional backgammon player in New York in 2000. The numbers weren’t there for Hansen to make a living playing backgammon, and the poker world has paid for it ever since.

Hansen is famous for his extremely loose aggressive style of play that often leaves his opponents guessing as to what cards he has. No matter what two cards Hansen is holding he could raise or bluff the pot at any time. This style of play has brought him tremendous success on the WPT circuit.

He is the only player to win three WPT open tournaments. He also was the winner of the first WPT Bad Boys of Poker invitational tournament. In 2004, the WPT inducted him into the World Poker Tour Walk of Fame, along with Doyle Brunson and James Garner.

Hansen has also had plenty of success away from the WPT. This includes winning the first Poker Superstars Invitational Tournament and the first EPM event, the London All Star Challenge.

One of the most popular poker videos you can find on the internet is of Hansen winning the biggest pot ever on High Stakes poker, when he won $575,700 after his 5-5 defeated Daniel Negreanu’s 6-6 when the board showed 9-6-5-5-8. It’s hands like that which make people want to be Gus Hansen.

Read more about these pro poker players…

Not a whole lot is known about poker pro Paul “Eskimo” Clark. One thing that anyone who has sat down at the same table with “Eskimo” knows, however, is that he is one of the most aggressive poker players around.

“Eskimo” has used his intensely aggressive play at the poker table to make a living at the game for the last 15 years at least. Many people believe Clark is from Alaska or somewhere else up north due to his cool nickname. In reality, Clark hails from New Orleans and his nickname was derived from his appearance, which resembles the Alaska Airlines Logo thanks to his bushy hair and beard.

Clark makes a living by playing in some of the richest cash games in the world at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, and his success has earned him the 62nd spot on the all-time poker money list. When he’s not raking it in at cash games, Clark also takes in some tournaments including making stops at the World Series of Poker and on the World Poker Tour.

Clark has won three WSOP bracelets in the last 15 years. His first bracelet win came in the $5,000 7 Card Stud event in 1992. His next bracelet win was in the $1,500 Razz event in 1999. His most recent bracelet was won in 2002 at the 7 Card Stud Hi/Lo event.

Despite Clark’s colorful appearance and personality at the tables, he is not one of the more well-known poker pros and as a result not much is known about him away from the tables. The little-known facts about Clark include his birth place (New Orleans), his current residence (Las Vegas), and that he is a Vietnam Veteran, where he worked as a medic.

The rest of Clark’s life remains a mystery, which may give him an advantage at the tables behind his somewhat scraggy appearance and reflector shades.

If you’re looking for the best female poker player in the world you might glance over names like Annie Duke, Kathy Liebert and Kristy Gazes, but your search stops at Jennifer Harman. Harman is considered by most people in the poker world to be the best female poker player on the planet. In fact, many experts peg her as one of the best poker players around, period.

Harman has won two World Series of Poker bracelets, with her first coming in the No Limit Deuce to Seven Lowball event in 2000. That win was extra special not only because it was her first WSOP bracelet, but it was also the first time she had played the game Deuce to Seven Lowball. Apparently Harman was shown the game and given a few tips by friend and fellow poker pro Howard Lederer before the event, and she proved to be a natural who picked it up in mere minutes.

Her second WSOP bracelet win came in the $5,000 No Limit Hold’em event back in 2002. That win made her the only woman to hold two bracelets in WSOP events.

When she’s not touring the tournament circuit Harman can be found grinding out a living at the highest limit cash games available at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. Harman was considered to be a good enough player to be part of “The Corporation”, a group of poker pros that faced infamous billionaire Andy Beal for limits as high as $100,000-$200,000.

Harman is also active away from the poker tables as an author, spokeswoman and advocate for organ donation. Harman has first-hand experience with the necessity of organ donation after taking a year off from poker in 2004 while having her second kidney transplant. After her second transplant, Harman founded CODA – Creating Organ Donation Awareness – a non-profit organization to raise money and awareness for the cause.

As an author, Harman the author first took a crack at poker literature by writing the Limit Hold’em section in Doyle Brunson’s Super System II. Harman is a member of Team Full Tilt, and appears in ads and plays online at Full Tilt Poker.

As for the feminine mystique, Harman sums it up this way: “I think women have the more intuitive edge than men; they have better gut feelings than men do.

“This is still a man’s world, and I think men use that to get under a woman’s skin to make more money off of the women. If a woman can conquer that, and let that roll off their shoulders and not be intimidated, I think they can become very good.”

With 21 events completed, the WSOP Player of the Year Race is shaping up to be one to watch. The current leader is a seasoned professional named Tom Schneider. Tom has been a force on the tournament scene since 2002 but was always a bridesmaid, cashing often but never winning the event, until this year’s 7-Stud bracelet win. He also had a fourth-place finish in the $2500 HORSE event. His lead isn’t very big though; his 155 points are only 20 more than the second-place player, who happens to be a WSOP legend.

Humberto Brenes is on Tom’s heels with 135 pts and three cashes of his own this year. Humberto has had 48 WSOP cashes (no, that’s not a misprint) and has two bracelets of his own. He had eight cashes last year alone, and is my early favourite to win the race this year.

Next is Russian poker star Alex Kravchenko, who also has three cashes so far this year. The veteran has earned over half a million in tournament cash and is a real threat to win, because he is so diverse in the poker variations he can play at a top level. He is alone in third place with 120 points.

The 21-year-old sensation named Steve Billirakis has continued his solid play since he won event #1 of this year’s tournament. He has cashed twice since then, and is currently tied with John (Razor) Phan for fourth place in the WSOP standings with 110 points.

Other notables are Greg (Fossilman) Raymer in sixth place and Phil Hellmuth in seventh, both only 50 points off the lead. Phil has won his 11th bracelet, and Allen Cunningham has won his fifth this year, leaving them with105 and 100 points respectively, and a good shot at winning this race too.

Names like Chris Ferguson, Phil Ivey, Gavin Smith, and Erik Cajelais are all sitting at 75 points with lots of events left to be played. It’s still anyone’s race to win, and it’s going to be exciting to see who is able to do it.

For more WSOP news, check out the Bodog Beat.

Jennifer Tilly is playing for all the marbles in the $5000 No Limit Holdem game at the 2007 WSOP

It continues to be a history-making year at the 2007 World Series of Poker. In the opening week, the youngest WSOP bracelet-winner record as well as the non-main event field-size records were smashed, and two more records came crumbling down this week.

Phil Hellmuth guaranteed himself a spot in the WSOP history books when he won the main event at only 24 years of age back in 1989. Since then Hellmuth has been a consistent winner at the WSOP and proved this week he may very well be the best poker player alive in the world today. Heading into this year’s WSOP, Hellmuth shared the record for WSOP bracelets won with Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chan at 10. Hellmuth passed both poker legends this week by winning his 11th WSOP bracelet in the $1,500 No Limit Hold’em tourney. The win was even more impressive because Hellmuth outlasted a huge field of 2628 players. That was the largest field in any tournament that Hellmuth has won.

The win gave Hellmuth his 59th career WSOP cash finish, which puts him five ahead of the next player in line. He’s also gaining on T.J. Cloutier for the WSOP final-table record. Cloutier has made it to 39 WSOP final tables in his lifetime, while Hellmuth’s total now stands at 38. Don’t be surprised to see Hellmuth reach or even eclipse that mark before the 2007 WSOP comes to an end.

While Hellmuth was making his record-setting bracelet charge, the best female poker players in the world were coming together to set their own record. The $1,000 No Limit Hold’em Ladies Only tournament kicked off earlier this week with a record-setting field. There were 1286 women packed into the Rio’s Amazon room when the tournament began, which surpassed last year’s record-setting field of 1128. (Read that story here!)

The largest women-only poker tournament ever played was won by Sally Boyer, who cleared $262,077 in what was her first-ever WSOP tournament. With the number of female poker players increasing every year, it might be too long before a woman takes home poker’s ultimate prize – the WSOP $10,000 World Championship main event.

Is this year stacking up to last year’s numbers?

With all the fuss about America trying to criminalize internet poker, a lot of people are interested to see how this year’s WSOP is lining up against previous years. The biggest tournament on the planet will certainly be the place where we will learn if the game has begun to either decline, levelled off, or continued to grow.

Well, so far there hasn’t been any dramatic result to report. Some numbers are up, and some are down. It’s a bit tough to compare because the structure of the tournament changed so much this year, with the addition of so many new events.

Nonetheless, here’s a list of events that have been played in previous years, as well as this year, with the entry numbers:
Game                            2003     2004     2005     2006     2007

$1,500 NL Hold’em - 531         831         2,305      2,776      2,998
$1,500 PL Hold’em - 212          363         1,071      1,102         781
$1,500 Limit Hold’em - 346     608           699       1,068        910
$1,000+Rebuys Hold’em- n/a 538           826           752        844
$2,000 NL Hold’em -     407     834     1  ,403        1,919      1,531
$5,000 7-Card Stud -     96      144            192           183        180

Totals                                        3,318      6,496        7,800     7,244

So looking at those numbers, one could say that the tournament has started a decline, or at least has levelled off this year.  But those stats are a bit debatable because they don’t give the entire picture of this year’s tournament because there are more events being played now, with some of them overlapping.  The first event this year was the biggest tournament ever played (except the last two WSOP main events).  So to this point the numbers are good and are not showing a dramatic decline that many predicted.  If this continues, overall entries for the tournament will grow because of the extra events, which shows an increase in overall attraction for the WSOP.

But even this good news doesn’t change my opinion that the Main Event numbers will be down from last year.  The WSOP is not taking any third party entries from online sites that provide American action.  These sites have driven the numbers up in previous years through satellite entries.  Therefore, these sites are forced to reward their players with the cash for the trip, giving the player the option to keep it instead of letting it ride in the Main Event.  And many will do just that.  I expect a total number of somewhere between 5600 and 6000 – but who knows? Last year’s record could yet be broken.

Hey… you can bet on who you think has what it takes to win the 2007 WSOP Main Event. Get your 2007 WSOP odds!

Can’t make it to the 2007 WSOP? That’s okay. You can still read all about it…

The next best thing to being at the World Series of Poker is reading about it through all of the entertaining poker blogs that have exploded all over the net. There are so many poker or poker-related blogs out there right now that PokerStars can offer a yearly tournament for poker blog purveyors and end up with thousands of entrants.

One of the most famous blogs out there is the Party Poker blog. When you’re one of the most well-known and popular poker sites in the world, it’s probably not that hard to get your blog noticed. Most of the time the Party Poker blog has some interesting stories and tidbits from the insane world of online poker, but it’s not a great destination for WSOP news and opinion. Right now, by looking at the blog you wouldn’t even know the WSOP was going on because they aren’t even talking about it. If you’re looking for some fun poker info check out the Party Poker Blog, but if you’re looking for WSOP info give it a pass.

The best WSOP info from the Rio I’ve found recently comes from pokerblog.com. What an original web address, huh? If you want to know the goings-on at the WSOP down to the most minute detail, this is the best blog on the web. Even if you’re in Vegas and you’re looking for event starting times, I’d go here before I would go to the extremely inane official WSOP website.

The boys and girls at pokerblog.com know their stuff and they know how to deliver it in an interesting manner that won’t have you clicking somewhere else before you get halfway down the page.

Another good one? Bodog Beat. They’ve got a couple of guys at the WSOP covering all the events so their reporting is first-hand and first-rate.

Anyone who qualifies for the World Series of Poker main event online this year has a new decision to make. Take the money and play, or take the money and run.

With the new rules in effect at the WSOP barring online poker sites from taking part, players who win seats in the main event will be have to receive the money from the site and register themselves. So basically you can take your $10,000 and stand in line for hours to register, or take your $10,000 and spend it anyway you see fit. Here are some of the pros and cons of each scenario.

Playing the tourney:

Pro – You make the money and end up with some cash anyway.

Con – You bust out early and end up with nothing.

Pro – You win the WSOP main event, become the next big poker spokesperson and never have to work again.

Keeping the $10,000:

Con – You miss out of the grandiose spectacle that is the WSOP main event.

Pro – You have $10,000 with which to do whatever you want.

Con – You could have won a whole lot more than $10,000 in the tourney.

Faced with these two situations, I’m going to have to go with option C. That would be play with your new $10,000 online and try to make as much money as you can before the main event begins. If you’re good enough to qualify for the WSOP online, then you should be good enough to win some cash at pretty high stakes.

Then after possibly doubling or tripling your initial $10,000, withdraw the $10,000 you need to play the main event and take a crack at the millions available to the WSOP winner.

You’ve got until June 18th to win your seat at the 2007 WSOP by playing online poker.