TK's turn

Skiing? When has TK ever gone skiing?

When I first met Terry, I thought he was cocky and abrasive. He also brought this guy named BDA (big dumb animal) who was a total donk and laughed like an idiot. We loved to see BDA walk in, but TK was a player. (What happened to his game, no one knows) He was aggressive and loose, much like me, and I couldnt stand it. After a while, I came to realize that he never had a hand, and we became fast friends. Terry's one of the funniest members of the group, and he's a blast to party with...

Name: Terry Kavouras
Nickname: VegasTerry, TK, Bluffy McLiarpants
Age: 47
Hometown: Cleveland, Ohio
Hobbies other than poker: Golf, Skiing, Fishing, Drinking, Couch Surfing

1. What was your first CPMG experience? (please include when/where, how you came to join the group, etc.)

I found the CPMG in the Spring of 2004 but the site was full of spam and there were very few messages on the board. I think I posted something about being interested in a game somewhere. I checked back every so often, but there were never any new messages. One day that fall I finally got a response from John Coleman. He posted that he had a regular tournament every Wednesday night and posted his phone number. I eventually called him and he kinda freaked me out. John answered the phone is his basso profundo cartoon sing-song voice and I remember thinking, "who is this guy, is he some kind of fag?". When he said he lives in an apartment downtown I was even more weirded out, I mean who lives downtown? Yuppies, Guppies, and the bag ladies. I thought that this might be some sort of homo game, perhaps a homo trap! I remember asking him jokingly whether I can bring a gun. He said, "you won't be the only one". Fuck! I mean what sort of gay mafia game was he running? But despite all my misgivings I decided to go one Wednesday night. I remember that I called a good friend of mine and told him about the game and my thoughts. I said to him, "Listen, I don't know about this game or this guy. I'm going down there tonight, but if I don't come back, if I go missing, tell the cops I went to this address". He sorta laughed, I sorta laughed, but I was truthfully a little nervous. Nevertheless, the siren song of poker gripped me and I drove down to his apartment. I wasn't sure where to park, how to get in, etc. So after I parked and as I was walking up to the building I see this black guy coming right toward me. He was tall and skinny and he wasn't throwing off any crazy, gang-y, ex-conn-y vibes so I looked at him and he said "Hey. You going to the game?" I said, "Yeah, are you?" He said, "Yeah, I'll show you the way in, my name's Gibran". So Gibran and I went up to Coleman's place and I was surprised and relieved to find a bunch of regular (for poker players) guys sitting around two tables in what was the living room of this one bedroom apartment. I mean the whole place was consumed by poker stuff. Very cool. I met John, Mark Tomon, Dohar, Karl, Wellington, Diablo and a bunch more of the founders. We played two $10 tourneys. I think I cashed in the first one. It turned out to be a great time and a great group. I thought I was going to find a bunch of violent, tatooed, crusty, creepy, low lifes and it turns out they weren't all that tatooed.

2. Which do you prefer...AK or JJ

I think you can do more with AK, especially if it's suited. With JJ you're never sure where you stand unless you flop a set. I think it's harder to play JJ post flop. As they say, there are three ways to play JJ...all three of them wrong.

3. What pro player do you think you play like?

This is really hard to peg. I suppose I should ask someone who plays against me what they think. I think I can play a bit like Farha, but I don't have the bluff in me to play like Hanson. I like how Eli Elezra plays but I'm not sure if my style (if you can call it that) would compare well with his. I have the emotional range of a Matusow or a Helmuth, but I think I control it better than either of them. I think, when I'm playing my best, most focused game I can play like Fergusen and read like Negreanu.

4. What are your three favorite hands?

The hands I'm most excited to see are AA, KK, QQ. So I guess those are my favorite hands. I have a nasty habit of playing J9 suited and I like pocket 8s for some reason.

5. Describe the biggest pot you ever won.

I can easily tell you the biggest pot I ever lost. It's hard to remember the biggest pot I won, however. I remember my fastest quadruple-up pretty well though. I was in Vegas for the first time with the CPMGers (John, Mark, Gibran, Dohar and I all went) in August of 2005. It was about dinner time and after a full day of playing various room we headed back to the hotel for some of the guys to change for dinner. I had taken a shower and changed later than the rest of them I think, so I didn't need to go back to the room. So I sat down at a $2-5 table to kill some time while they got ready. The second hand I got was KK. A guy three spots to my right has about $2,000 in front of him and he opens for like $25. I re-raise him to $70, there was a caller, then the original raiser gives me a pissy look, then calls. The flop was something like K99. The guy checks to me and I push $100 in. Other caller folds, guy who orignally raised goes all in, and I insta-call showing my boat. He glares at me and I double up to $600. Two hands later I get AK suited. The same guy opens the pot for $25 again. I raise to $50, folds around to him and he calls and grunts something unintelligilble. I flop the nut flush. The guy comes out with a $100 bet, I go all in - $550 and he insta calls with two pair. He misses his boat and I double again through the guy. I hit a couple more pretty good hands and when the guys come down from the room, about 15 minutes later, I have almost $1,700 in front of me. They are stunned, laughed, slapped me on the back. We were going to dinner, so I picked up my money and left the table. They weren't too happy about it, especially the guy that doubled me up twice, but that's poker!