Kruger Magazine

The luck of the Irish or simply great tournament poker playing skills, call it what you will, but Tom Mc Cormick is not bothered about being tagged ‘The Shamrock Kid’ and neither does he feel offended at his gaming experience credited to a lucky leaf logo belonging to his family construction company. He knows that 19 cash game wins in major tournaments and a total of 83 cashes with 2 first place finishes are only a part of bigger things to come.

And if nothing else, ‘The Shamrock Kid’ is patient, focused on improvements and always hopeful about the future. So, this Fargo resident doesn’t rest on his ten final table appearances, but constantly works on improving his total tournament earnings of $1,247,448 and adding to his bankroll.

His earliest WSOP entry was way back in 1983 for the Limit Hold’em tournament and though McEvoy, that wasn’t the reason why Tom didn’t return to the circuit for another 8 years. It was because he was short of cash that he could only build his poker bankroll for the 1991 $2500 limit Hold’em event; however, it turned out that he ultimately fell short of the amount and only played the tourney in 1992. His persistence is commendable and so is his courage because Tom faced the tournament packed with highly experienced poker players and even amid solid competition, he managed to reach the final 18. It was a thrilling time for young Tom as he sat face to face at the final table with seniors like Phil Hellmuth, Hamid Dasmachi and Eric Seidel. Though he didn’t win, he did manage to cash in 3rd position and earned a neat $42,000 for setting the hook.

Ever since, he has not missed a Full Tilt Poker Download WSOP though the coveted bracelet still eludes him; Tom dreams of earning it one day and continues working on his tournament games strategy, which he realizes must be fierce and a mixture of tight and loose play, depending on opponents as much as it is dependant on the starting hand.

Tom knew Hellmuth as the latter was a frequent visitor to Fargo where he used to come to play private games as a college student (prior to his WSOP championship win) and describes him as a ‘quiet kid’ who liked to play poker with a headset on.

Though he has not been as lucky as Phil Hellmuth at getting great cards (Phil got aces thrice at a final table event held in 1993 and the lucky streak showed twice in a 2007 tournament too) and another poker senior, Men Nyugen, held 3 tens that could have potentially busted Tom’s hand in 1995, but fortunately for Mc Cormick, he made kings.

His luck didn’t hold out for another week though, as his aces didn’t fare well against Costa Rican Humberto Brenes’ nines. The same deal followed with McCormick at a stud 8/better final table that Phil Ivey took by storm, holding A-2-3-4 as his first 4 cards and the pot was shared between Ivey and Robert Turner who had triple 6’s and earned his share of the pot fairly; Tom couldn’t catch anything at this event.