McEvoy, 68, who won the 1983 Poker Main Event World Series, did not try to hide the emotions that flowed through him.
Scottie Nguyen and Tom McEvoy have distinctly different personalities. Nguyen is brave and charismatic at the table. And away from feeling, he is very human. Fans always block him for autographs and photos. And Nguyen is always on duty. Tom McEvoy doesn't lack confidence. But he is more studied and thoughtful at the table. Off the table, McEvoy is known as a sincere, game-thinking leader.
But when they entered the Poker Hall of Fame on Sunday, they had one main thing in common: emotions. Both players choked up as they talked about how important it was for them to join the game's great masters. McEvoy had a hard time speaking up. Nguyen was in tears. And the audience gushed about their past.
"When I heard that I was elected to the Poker Hall of Fame, I was very emotional. My wife, Yolanda, started crying," said the four-time winner of the WSOP bracelet at a wine cellar ceremony at the Rio All Suites Hotel & Casino. 카지노사이트 순위
"I was emotional when I heard the news and now I am emotional," McEvoy added. "This will cherish the rest of my life."
"After winning the main event in the last century, this honor means the most to me," McEvoy said. "I used to say I'd rather be in the Hall of Fame than get another bracelet. And that's the truth."
McEvoy, who won bracelets by playing unlimited Holdham, Holdham, Razz, and Omaha, earned nearly $3 million in competition money. He is well-known as a poker thinker. He has written more than a dozen poker strategy books and numerous poker columns. Not bad for Michael, an accountant for The Grand Lapid, who decided to move to Las Vegas in the late '70s to pursue a poker career. McEvoy's most lasting impact on the game, however, can be felt in poker players' lungs.
McEvoy was a leader of the movement to make poker rooms non-smoking. For decades, poker rooms were filled with smoke and cigar smoke, just like the casinos they belonged to. But thanks to McEvoy, poker rooms were filled with smoke and cigar smoke, unlike the casinos they were sitting in.
T.J. Clutier, who introduced McEvoy, credits McEvoy for helping save his life by quitting smoking in a poker room.
"I was tired four and a half packs a day when I was doing the Salem 100s," said Clutier, who quit in 2000, mostly smoked because he could no longer smoke at the poker table. "I used to light the ashtray and smoke one behind my ears."
Nguyen's path to the Poker Hall of Fame is markedly different from McEvoy's. "Prince Poker," 51, was born in Vietnam and came to the U.S. in the mid-70s as a 14-year-old refugee from the war-torn country.
Nguyen started out as a dealer in poker. But he quickly learned that his talent was on the other side. He played in his first cash game in 1991, and raised $11.7 million in tournament revenue. He won the WSOP Main Event in 1998, reached 19 WSOP Final Tables and eight WPT Final Tables, and won five WSOP bracelets. He is also the only player to win the Main Event and the $50,000 WSOP Poker Player Championship. (At the time of his win, the tournament was a $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event.)
He is also famous for putting "baby" in every sentence and drinking Michelob beer. When Nguyen beat Kevin McBride in the WSOP main event, he knew he had won, and he wasn't shy about letting McBride know.
