My name is Kar Yung Tom and I am a 30 year old poker player from Montreal, Quebec. I figured I’d call my column the Winter Soldier as a reminder that I come from the Great White North. Let’s start off with a little gaming-related background about myself. Maybe I share some interests with some of you. When I was in high school and college, I was one of the top 10 chess players for my grade level in Quebec. At the same time, I was in the top 50 for my age group in Canada. I’ve come across a lot of people who have told me they have won a chess tournament or two back in the day, but in my case, I took chess very seriously. Eventually, my passion for chess died when none of my friends were willing to travel to tournaments with me anymore.
Nowadays though, my attention is on Magic: the Gathering, the number one collectible card game in the world. If you enjoy poker and you have never heard of Magic before, I’m willing to bet that it is a game that you will likely enjoy. Many people will tell you that I am likely a top 5 player in Quebec while also being one of the more promising players in the country. I own and manage our country’s most well-known strategy website in ManaDeprived.com. I still play and travel to events to this day. Because of the luck factor in Magic, I have many friends that continue to play and I’ve flown across the world with some of them to compete at high-level events.
Now we move to poker which is something that I have dabbled with for over 5 years. I never took it seriously or gave it a real shot as being a serious source of income until very recently (one month ago). Despite me entering the poker world at its toughest, I feel like my proven pedigree, talent, and success in other strategy games bolds well for my future. As of now, I am honing my games at the micro-stakes, playing no higher than 25 NL 6-Max on PokerStars. My goal is to be RCP’s poster child, someone who uses RCP as a fundamental base to become a poker superstar. I have no financial interest in this goal, but having met James Sweeney and Doug Hull in Vegas, there was an early sense of camaraderie there. I also think it’s cool for people to see step-by-step how I went from being a beginner to an elite player (assuming I succeed). When I read about the big names these days, I really wish I could see how they got there.
To start my serious poker career, I think it’s important to ensure that my basic understanding of the game is solid and that I am always willing to question everything that I know regardless of how obvious something seems. In my Magic circles, a lot of people stay at the same playing strength for their entire careers because they have some fundamental hole in their thinking or approach to the game.
At the RCP WSOP meet-up, I had a conversation with a gentleman where we started talking about how much I was willing to risk on a monster draw. I said that I was OK getting it all-in if I had one of those 15 outs type of draws. The gentleman said that even if I have AKs on a 763 board and that the villain has 88, I was behind.
“I understand that you have positive equity, but you are behind. You still have to catch cards. Even if villain showed you 88, would you call with your entire stack?”
Yes??? Unless the hand ended at the flop for some reason, there is still a turn card and a river card to be dealt. Of course there are different considerations if the question does not involve a flop all-in as I am likely behind on the turn if I don’t catch one of my outs by the next card. Anyways, my point with bringing up this story was that even if we surround ourselves with the right resources (RCP!), if we do not understand the basics fully, we will cap our poker playing strength.
And with that, I will end my first column.
Good luck at the tables!
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