Is there any poker player alive or dead with a better name and a better story than Chris Moneymaker?

Moneymaker’s story is one of poker’s greatest; a truly remarkable tale of rags to riches, of winning against all odds, of guts, and of luck. And believe it or not, Chris Brian Moneymaker’s name is, well, his real name. Yes, it really is.

In 2003 Chris Moneymaker became the first man ever to win the WSOP after qualifying for the event at an online poker room. He gained his entry to the $10,000 buy-in after investing the not-so-princely sum of $40 in online satellites at PokerStars.com. When the dust settled after his whirlwind stay in Las Vegas Chris Moneymaker had turned $40 into $2.5 million; poker would never be the same again.

Background

Chris Moneymaker was born in Tennessee in 1976. Despite an interest in cards fuelled by childhood games played with his grandmother, Moneymaker took a traditional route towards a traditional career. He enrolled in the University of Tennessee after completing high school, and gained a Master’s degree in accounting.

After university Moneymaker got a job as an accountant, and settled in life as a normal working man, becoming a father around the same time.

Life began to change for Moneymaker in 2000, when he and his friends watched the movie Rounders. Moneymaker’s interest in poker was stoked, and he went online to try his luck on PokerStars.com. A few years later and his life would change for ever.

Moneymaker’s victory was as if out of a fairy tale. An accountant scraping by on $40,000 a year at the time, Moneymaker could barely even afford to get to the WSOP, let alone pay to enter it. Even after earning his ticket for just $40 (beating hundreds of competitors in the process) he still had to borrow money from his father and one of his father friends in order to make the trip. On top of that his poker experience at the time was limited to online play; such that prior to the WSOP Moneymaker had never once played in a live poker tournament.

So to sum up: a humble accountant with no live poker experience who qualified for the WSOP for just $40 went on to win $2.5 million, beating the pro’s in his first ever live tournament and becoming a poker super-star overnight. Oh and his surname is Moneymaker. Sounds like a script for a Hollywood movie doesn’t it?

Who knows? Maybe it won’t be long before it is a Hollywood movie, but in the meantime Moneymaker’s success has transformed the poker world, creating a wave of excitement around the game that no one anticipated.

The Event

Moneymaker’s performance in the 2003 WSOP has come in for mixed reviews, with many people who insist that his victory was down to luck, not skill. But while Moneymaker himself admits he was lucky in the event, to suggest he won through luck is way off the mark.

For besides the plain fact that Moneymaker actually played some great poker during the tournament, it simply isn’t statistically possible to outlast a field of over 800 players (a WSOP record at the time) through sheer luck. This is poker after all, not roulette.

Of course luck played its part, as it does in every victory, as it always has done. But it seems that people remember Moneymaker’s lucky breaks with greater clarity than they do others; the hand where his pocket 8’s caught a third 8 on the turn to beat Humberto Brenes’s pocket rockets being a particularly fondly remembered break.

But the spotlight which shone so brightly on the seat of Moneymaker and his fairy tale in the making also picked up some terrific plays. Moneymaker made some great reads and some astute calls, and in the bluffing department he was a beast, making terrifically courageous and well conceived moves throughout the event.

The Moneymaker Effect

Moneymaker’s victory was to prove to be extremely lucrative not just for Moneymaker himself, but for the entire poker industry. The aftershock from his victory can still be felt today, in the millions of dollars that are wagered every second on internet rooms across the world.

The story of an amateur battling his way to win the greatest poker competition of all clearly resonated with poker players and non-poker players alike. People around the world began to realise that if Moneymaker had been able to do it, and without forking out an arm and a leg to qualify either, then why shouldn’t they. Internet poker rooms ballooned, taking in more money than they could have imagined in their wildest dreams.

A year later, in the summer of 2005 the results were on display for all to see. That year there were 2576 entrants to the WSOP, more than three times the number that participated in the 2003 WSOP; the winner, once again, was an amateur poker player who qualified online at PokerStars.com.

After the WSOP

Since the WSOP Moneymaker has, unsurprisingly, chucked in the accounting towel, and taken up poker professionally. Acting as a representative of PokerStars.com Moneymaker has had moderate success since his WSOP victory. He is yet to win a major event since then, but he did finish second in the 2004 Bay of shooting Stars WPT event, proving that he was no one hit wonder.

The Man

Chris is a devoted family man and fatter of one daughter. He is widely reported to be a gentleman, both on and off the poker table. He credits the 1998 movie ‘Rounders’ for his interest in poker.

The Winning Hand

With a big chip lead of $6.6 million to $1.8 million Chris Moneymaker picks up the unpromising looking 5d-4s in the big blind. Sam Farha, holding the much better looking Jh-Td, bets $100,000 from the small blind, with Moneymaker calling.

The flop comes down Js-5s-4c, a disaster for Farha, as it gives him top pair, and Moneymaker the bottom two-pairs. First to act, Chris checks and then raises Farha’s $175,000 bet to $275,000. Farha now decides to go all-in and Moneymaker quickly calls. The turn is the ace of spades, taking away two of Farha’s outs (the Ts and the Js), and the river is the 4h, giving Moneymaker a full house, fours full of fives, and the WSOP Championship.