The World Series of Poker at the Rio in Las Vegas decided to celebrate the 40th year of the WSOP with a special tournament. The 25 living main event champions were all invited to compete for the title of 'Champion of Champions', with the winner receiving a vintage 1971 bright, cherry red, corvette fully restored. In addition, the champion received the first ever awarded Binion's Cup. The cup was named for the Binion family which founded the World Series of Poker, first held in 1970. Jack Binion, son of the founder Benny Binion, was invited to award the cup to the winner.

The tournament began on May 31st, with the final table the next day. Of the 25 past living champions, 20 showed up to participate. A historic photograph was taken of the Champions, and you could literally feel the electricity in the air. Several of us were wearing Stetsons, including me. It reminded me of the earlier tournaments which were dominated by players from Texas. Everyone wanted to win the title, the cup, the car and not least of all the bragging rights. I cannot remember facing a tougher line-up in my entire poker career (which spans over 30 years).

The tournament started with three tables. After two players were eliminated we went down to two nine-handed tables. Jamie Gold, the 2006 champion, had the unfortunate distinction by going broke very early in the first level of play. After that one by one the remaining players went broke until we got down to one final table of ten. That final table would come back to play the next day in front of the tv cameras. ESPN is scheduled to air the show on August 4th.

The WSOP started out as a winner take-all event with $10,000 in chips. This Champion of Champions event followed the tradition. The opening blinds were $25 - $50 with one-hour rounds. We battled for almost six hours the first day, finally getting down to the final ten when the blinds were $200 - $400 with a $25 Ante. Phil Hellmuth was determined to make the tv table and after 2005 champion, Joe Hachem went broke with slightly more chips than Phil, the poker brat got his wish.

Of course he was down to less than $1,500 in chips, and Doyle made a very humorous remark before play started the next day. He told Phil that this confirmed what he knew all along - Phil would do anything to make the tv table, lol. I wonder if the mics picked up Doyle 's remark - I guess we will have to wait and see. Doyle was in a humorous mood that day, he also said: "Where are all the internet players - oh there he is." He was referring to Peter Eastgate the youngest player at the table, and the reigning World Champion.

As luck would have it, Phil, by far the shortest stack, drew the big blind the very first hand. Carlos Mortensen who busted Phil when he won the 2001 championship did it again by raising on the first hand dealt, putting Phil all-in if he chose to call. Everyone passed to Phil who hemmed and hawed for a minute then said, (heck) he would have to call with practically any two cards and then did so with a suited 10-5. Surprisingly, Phil was not in that bad of shape as he was up against Carlos's pocket deuces. However, as luck would have it the poker brat did not improve and was out on the first hand dealt. He was very gracious as he left the table, shaking everyone's hand and wishing us all good luck.

Eastgate went out a few hands later. He raised preflop with the 7-8 of spades and got reraised by 1995 champion Dan Harrington. Peter thought about it for a while then made a play I would definitely not have made against Dan. He pushed all-in. Now in my opinion Dan would not have reraised this early at the final table without a big hand, so this was definitely not the time to make this kind of move. Dan, rather humorously said: "Well everybody has to take a stand sometime," and then called - with pocket aces. He also said he wished he was up against a different type of hand before the flop and was proven right when the flop came down 8-6-5. Peter flopped a pair with an open-ended straight draw and two cards to come. Yikes! Dan sweated it out and Peter got no help and went out in 9th place.

The tournament took a long time to finish, finally ending around 1am in the 12th round of play with the blinds at $1,000 - $2,000 and a $300 ante. Along the way I eliminated Doyle in 8th place. Later on 1986 Champion Barry Johnson, short-stacked to begin with finally went broke to Carlos, soon followed by 1996 champion Huck Seed.

I was fortunate to win a few pots early against Carlos and knock his stack down considerably and became co-chip leader with Harrington. Carlos finally made top two pair against 1993 champion Jim Bechtel, but Jim had flopped a set and our opening chip leader went out in 5th place. Down to four players now, Robert Varkoni , the 2002 Champion, was the shortest stack and raised the pot to $3,000, I was on the button with A-K offsuit and reraised to $9,000. Bechtel in the big blind then pushed in for about $34,000, Varkoni quickly folded and it was up to me. In another article I will explain what went through my mind when I finally decided to make the call, but sometimes you make the wrong play at the right time and get lucky. Jim had pocket kings and Robert said he had folded a suited ace - oops, I was in worse shape than I thought. However I admit the poker gods smiled on me this day, and the flop revealed one of the two remaining aces in the deck. My hand held up and I now had over $100,000 of the $200,000 chips in play. I was in the lead the rest of the way, but Harrington and Varkoni were only one double up from taking the lead.

We played almost three hours three-handed before I broke Dan Harrington with K-Q of diamonds vs his pocket nines. I called his all-in bet on an ace, queen flop, hoping he didn't have an ace. This time I was right and my pair held up.

If players were betting on Varkoni's chances of making it to the finals and I would be his opponent, it would have been a very long shot indeed, but what our colleagues didn't know was our mindset. I told the ESPN crew in my pre-tournament interview that nobody was more determined to win this event than me. I wanted to re-establish myself as a top notch player who could still compete against the toughest competition. I also felt that Robert Varkoni, who played excellent the entire tournament, had something to prove. He is a much underrated champion and he too wanted to gain some respect from his peers and I knew he would be tough to beat.

After I got heads-up with Robert, I had almost a 3 to 1 lead, and I took nothing for granted and didn't think I had it locked up. I was proved all too right as he won a whole series of pots right off the bat with his aggressive play and almost got even with me in the chip count. I started to battle back, and then we played a huge pot which put him all in. He was basically on a semi-bluff with a straight flush draw, but I had the top end of it blocked and had already made the nut straight, so he only had one out when he went all-in. My hand held up and I was the Champion of Champions.

That is something I will cherish for the rest of my life. The older players clearly dominated the final table, and I have one last thing to say: "Old School Rocks!"

Tom McEvoy is a PokerStars Team Pro and is a teacher for Deepstacks University. He has his own website www.tommcevoy.com and is available for seminars and private lessons.

You can back Tom McEvoy to enter the WSOP Hall of Fame by visiting the official nominations page.

Here's an image you did not expect to come into your mind today: a five-year-old Tom McEvoy sitting in his shorts on his grandmother's knee learning how to play poker... the hard way. "She used to give me a dollar and we'd play penny ante poker. She won the dollar back every time so I thought I'd better try to figure out how to win." So began a poker journey that over the course of nearly 60 years has seen the young, wide-eyed Tom develop into a legend of the game.

Legend is a word I choose carefully. Too often it is thrown around when it is not deserved, but in McEvoy's case no-one will disagree that it is apt. The man who grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan and then risked a comfortable life as an accountant to move to Las Vegas and play poker professionally is a winner, both at and away from the table.

He won the WSOP Main Event in 1983, has three other WSOP bracelets to his name, is a successful and respected author of poker books, helps charitable causes, and takes great satisfaction in being the catalyst to getting smoking banned from the big tournament floors.

Tom McEvoy

For McEvoy, though, all of that was topped when earlier this week he won the first WSOP Champions Invitational, beating a field of 19 other former world champions, an accomplishment of which he is justifiably proud.

That's why we on the PokerStars Blog believe McEvoy, an elder statesman of Team PokerStars Pro, should be a candidate to be inducted this year into Poker's Hall of Fame. It would be a momentous honour - and one you, our loyal readers, can help bring about by visiting the WSOP nomination page and marking him down as your choice.

As we sat chatting in the Rio's giant Amazon room before he played in day two of the WSOP $2,000 No Limit Event (in which he would later get in the money), it became clear how much of an honour it would be for him to be a Hall of Famer.

"For me, if I get in the Poker Hall of Fame this year it would be the best moment of my career - better than winning the Main Event, the three other bracelets, even the Champions Invitational," he said.

But for now he is simply delighted with the thrill of winning the Champions Invitational. There was no money to be won, only pride, the Binions Cup, and a beautiful 1970 restored red Corvette.

"Playing in such a special invitational event was something I had been looking forward to from the moment I heard about it. I prepared properly by being well rested, not playing any other WSOP events first, and eating right. I took it very seriously because I knew it would be the toughest line-up I had ever faced.

"There was always a chance some of the former champs would not take it so seriously, but for me it was very important to re-establish my credentials as a player. It was important to me career wise and for me personally knowing I had beaten all my peers. Later I saw Doyle Brunson who told me he was so glad I had won and that the old guard beat up on the new guys.

"It was funny, when we got to the final table I said to myself, 'Where are all the young internet players?' Only Peter Eastgate made it through - all the rest, apart from Carlos Mortensen, were over 40 years old! You see, the game of poker has not changed at all, but of course the players have with all their naked aggression."

Peter Eastgate and Tom McEvoy

Aside from his poker successes, Tom says his biggest accomplishment was to engineer the first big non-smoking tournament in 1998, proving it could be done, and then being instrumental in persuading Benny Binion to make the WSOP a non-smoking event from 2002.

"It has had such a huge impact," he said. "People nowadays just have no idea what it was like. Can you imagine sitting here in the Amazon room at the Rio now and playing while the tables were full of smokers? Even when the WSOP moved here in 2004 you could still smoke in the hallways. At break times it was like a fog. Now they've moved the smoking areas outside."

McEvoy has reason to detest what smoking can do. "I've had to watch the guy I wrote my last book with, Don Vines, die from throat cancer. The last year of his life was one operation after another. It was horrible. He was a heavy smoker, of course, and we begged him to give up, but he was hooked. He was 71, but trim and played tennis, so his life was cut short.

"Another friend of mine died at 50 from second-hand smoke. He had never smoked himself, but got lung cancer.

"I'd like to see smoking banned in casinos, too. I feel so sorry for the people who work there. It is such a health hazard for them, but of course they have no choice - they have to work to make a living. I was in one of the major casinos on The Strip here in Vegas recently , and there was a guy smoking a huge cigar with the smoke blowing into the face of the young girl working the table.

"She was five or six months pregnant.

"She begged her pit boss to move her, but he refused. What sort of person can do that?"

As well as poker success, McEvoy is a respected author of 13 books, "most of which are still in print and have made me a lot of money over the years". That's a lot of writing, but they were all popular. What are his favourites? "For me there are two stand-out titles: the one I wrote myself called Championship Tournament Poker, and the one I co-wrote with my friend T J Cloutier called Championship No Limit and Pot Limit Hold'em."

Despite his enormous contribution to the game, you rarely see McEvoy on the TV screens. "Well that's because I believe I have been a good example for the game of poker. I do not act up in front of the cameras so don't get the TV time. When we played the last three in the Champions Invitational we were really quiet, but that's because we (Varkonyi and Harrington) are all gentlemen, not bad boys. That meant the final was pure poker, we were focussing on the game and not trying to act up and psyche each other out - that final will be one for the poker aficionados."

Despite his low TV profile, McEvoy, who plays all online poker games - cash, tournaments and Sit and Goes - on PokerStars, is still recognised because of his reputation. "People do keep stopping me and asking for autographs and photographs. I've never refused to give one, ever, even if I have just busted from a tournament. For me it is nice to get recognition, and there's been a lot more here since I won the Champions Invitational."

On the final table of the Champions Invitational

To find out how McEvoy got to this illustrious stage in his poker career, you have to go back in time to his grandmother.

"She was a $2 horse bettor. She loved to gamble, and she used to give me a dollar and we'd play penny ante poker. She won the dollar back every time so I thought I'd better try to figure out how to win. I was the oldest of four, and she did the same for the others as well. It's what got me fascinated with cards. She lived until she was 98 - long enough to see me turn professional and move to Las Vegas, but sadly not quite long enough to see me become world champion."

So you may think gambling runs through the family blood. You'd be wrong.

"My parents are not gamblers, so it must have skipped a generation. They were horrified when I went professional, how I took my wife and three children to Vegas. They'd say, 'How can you take our three grandchildren 2,000 miles away?' But it was not just the poker. I hated the weather in Michigan and preferred the heat, so even if the poker had not worked out I would have stayed in Vegas and fallen back on my accountancy work. Four years later I became world champion.

"It's funny, only then did my mother admit to her friends what I did for a living - and that was only because the local paper did a story about my win and she had no choice but to own up!

"My father, Harry Kirby McEvoy Jnr - thank goodness he did not call me that - never really accepted what I did."

He was a paint salesman, and had a local store that did not really work out, but then he formed the Tru-Balance Knife Company, making some of the most popular hunting and recreational blades for knife-throwing, and training up army personnel and even circus performers.

McEvoy recalls his father was inducted into the "cutlery equivalent of the Poker Hall of Fame", and was known as Mac the Knife.

"To this day Mac the Knife is my all time favourite song. I went to my niece's wedding a few weeks ago, and it was the first song they played, which was really something."

Were he still alive, Mac the Knife would be proud of what his son has achieved. And as for Tom's grandmother, she would never have believed that the young five-year-old boy she introduced to cards is now in with a chance of entering Poker's Hall of Fame.

All photos © Joe Giron, IMPDI

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Please remember to do your bit by joining the PokerStars Blog in nominating Tom McEvoy for the Poker Hall of Fame.

Want to hear from the man himself? Enoy this video interview he gave to our friends over at pokerstars.tv

It may be 26 years since he won the WSOP Main Event, and the hair has grown grey (on head and beard), but Tom McEvoy today showed he has lost none of his shrewd poker ability. What makes this victory so sweet is the field he had to overcome - no less than 19 other world champions. Money was not at stake, but a lot of pride was. Oh, and a beautifully restored 1970 red Corvette.

The older champs like Amarillo Slim (1972) and Doyle Brunson (1976 & 1977) sat down with the young guns like reigning champion Peter Eastgate in a battle of old-style poker against new. And the old-(ish) game won.

Champions line up for final table

Team PokerStars Pro McEvoy beat 2002 champion Robert Varkonyi heads-up, but only after what seemed like a marathon three-handed encounter with Dan Harrington (1995). These guys have so much experience bottled up between them that none was going to make a silly slip.

Tom McEvoy

As the levels past, though, and the blinds increased, something had to give. It came when Harrington found [9c][9h] - but also found McEvoy in tricky mode. McEvoy had opened with a raise pre-flop, then Harrington came over the top for half his remaining 30,000. Call. The flop was [as][qc][4s] and McEvoy checked-called Harrington's 15,000 push. His [kd][qd] was good, and the 8 turn and 3 river kept him ahead.

At the start of heads-up play he had nearly a 3:1 chip lead over Varkonyi, and although the New Yorker began to grab some back, it was all over when we least expected it. They saw a flop of [7c][5s][8c], Varkonyi bet 4,000 and McEvoy called. The turn, [6c], set off an unstoppable train - Varkonyi bet 8,000, McEvoy made it 16,000, Varkonyi pushed all in. Call!

McEvoy: [10c][9d]
Varkonyi: [jd][5c]

McEvoy had the nuts, Varkonyi didn't. The river was [kc], improving his hand to a flush, and that was that. As well as the car, McEvoy picked up the Binions cup, presented by Jack Binion himself, who shaped the World Series way back in 1970.

The tournament had attracted the great majority of past main event winners, including Team PokerStars Pros Peter Eastgate (2008), Joe Hachem (2005), Greg Raymer (2004) and Chris Moneymaker (2003).

Peter Eastgate

Only Eastgate made it through to today's final table, although Raymer was quite busy elsewhere during yesterday's day one - he was pocketing more than $700,000 for coming third in the $40,000 no limit final. Even then, he showed great respect for the Champions Invitational by playing a few hands of it on his supposed $40K dinner break - then trying to salvage his blinded-away stack when he'd done on the big feature table.

Eastgate didn't last long on the final table. Three hands, in fact, is all it took before he pushed with [6s][7s] but ran into Harrington's pocket aces. Another small victory for the old school.

Congratulations to Tom McEvoy on his tremendous performance.

All photos © Joe Giron, IMPDI