The story of poker dates back to the 19th century, but the circle of players who played the game as anything more than a hobby changed significantly over the years.
In the 1970s, Benny Binion came up with the vision of the World Series of Poker, which sparked the first Poker Boom of sorts, bringing thousands of players into the game over the years.
Yet, it wasn’t until 2003 that poker truly exploded, and many believe one man was responsible for all of it. His name is Chris Moneymaker.
This is the story of how an accountant from Tennessee won more money at poker than he ever could have dreamed of and inadvertently sparked a revolution that gave birth to entire generations of poker players.
Chris Moneymaker Qualifies for the WSOP Main Event
In 2003, poker was already beginning to pick up pace, as events like the World Series of Poker and World Poker Tour were gaining popularity on mainstream TV.
The 2003 WSOP Main Event was attended by 839 players, more than in previous years, but was still a somewhat limited affair.
The main reason for that, of course, was the dominance of poker pros in the event. The likes of Stu Ungar, Scotty Nguyen, Chris Ferguson, and Carlos Mortensen had won the event in recent years, and players were hesitant to pony up $10k to play against such superstars.
PokerStars had emerged as one of the early online poker rooms and a partner of the WSOP, and they offered online qualifiers for the Main Event.
A 27-year-old accountant from Tennessee by the name of Chris Moneymaker won his $10k seat for just $86 online, but allegedly wasn’t too keen on making the trip and spending the money needed to spend the time in Las Vegas.
A friend of Moneymaker’s offered him a deal and bought a piece of his action, which allowed Chris to go to Vegas and try his chances against the best in the world.
An Unexpected Dark Horse Emerges
Moneymaker had very little experience playing tournament poker, and most of it came from playing home games with his friends. He was in a different league when he came to Vegas, as he went up against dozens of WSOP champions and tournament poker crushers.
As early as Day 1 of the event, however, his skills caught the eye of Lou Diamond, a professional sports handicapper who believed Chris was a true dark horse with a real chance of going all the way.
On his way to the final table, Moneymaker played a relatively unorthodox game, as he was not a professional and didn’t always know what the “right play” was.
A mix of luck and good decisions brought him to the edge of the final table, and a lucky hand against one of the best in the world, Phil Ivey, saw him propel to a massive chip stack.
Phil turned a set of Nines against Moneymaker’s top two pair, and was in a commanding position when all the chips went into the middle.
A lucky Ace on the river saw Chris Moneymaker win a million chip pot and go to the final table with newfound confidence.
A New Poker Champion Is Crowned
Despite eliminating Phil Ivey in 10th place and making the final table, Monemaker still had a mountain to climb.
The final table was stacked with dangerous poker professionals, including former Main Event champion Dan Harrington and legendary gambler Sam Farha.
Chris kept his cool, played his rush, and was soon down to three with exactly these two. When he eliminated Harrington in third, he believed he could win the whole thing for the first time.
With $1.3 million already in the bank, more than he ever could have dreamed of, Moneymaker entered the heads up match with the guts it took to face off against the “man with the cigar.”
Farha was visibly better throughout the match, but a well-timed bluff gave Moneymaker the chip lead, and he would eventually make a full house against Sam’s two pair to finish the tournament.
An accountant no one had ever heard of was now the World Champion of Poker, and millions of young kids watching the event suddenly got the idea that they could follow in his footsteps.
A True Explosion of Poker
Moneymaker’s 2003 WSOP win was the perfect storm for poker. Thousands of players were already getting into the lower stakes games, online poker was already growing, and the game was becoming more interesting for TV stations.
Moneymaker’s win was used perfectly by the marketing teams at WSOP and PokerStars to launch the idea that anyone can become a world champion.
The idea took a mind of its own, and the very next year, WSOP Main Event attendance tripled. By 2006, 8,773 players were playing in the Main Event, and it was a true global phenomenon.
Moneymaker won $2.5 million in 2003, and just a few short years later, another amateur by the name of Jamie Gold walked away with a $12 million first-place prize.
Things settled down, and the numbers stabilized over the years, with the Black Friday setting poker back quite a few years in 2011, but poker was never the same after the Poker Boom of 2003, triggered by what many refer to as “The Moneymaker Effect.”
Would the Poker Boom Have Happened Anyway?
The question many have asked over the years is whether Chris Moneymaker is truly responsible for the poker boom, or whether he was just lucky to win at a time when poker was booming anyway.
We will never know the true answer to that question, but there is no doubt that Moneymaker’s victory was an important boost in the poker revolution.
With more online qualifiers going to the WSOP every year, and online poker already becoming quite popular, there is no doubt that a lucky amateur would have eventually won the Main Event.
However, it’s unclear whether the story of just any amateur winning would have been as successful in bringing so many players into the game.
A different player who might have won would have perhaps been camera-shy and would certainly not have a last name as catchy as Moneymaker, all of which played a significant role in the story the media told to the masses.
At the very least, Chris Moneymaker helped speed up the Poker Boom by at least a few years, and many players who made it in poker in the early 2000s owe a lot of their success to the legendary poker Hall of Famer.
Where Is Chris Moneymaker Today?
When Chris won the Main Event in 2003, many believed he would be a one-hit wonder and would not amount to much as a poker player.
He proved them all wrong, as he won nearly $6 million more playing tournament poker in the years since, started his own poker tour, and still acts as an ambassador for ACR, one of the biggest brands in online poker.
Moneymaker’s tournament poker career was not as illustrious as the likes of Phil Hellmuth or Daniel Negreanu, but he is still ranked among the 250 most successful tournament poker players of all time.
Of course, Moneymaker’s role as a poker ambassador trumps his role as a player every day of the week, but he continues to perform well in both roles even more than 20 years after his legendary victory.
