Chris Moneymaker is not a fish

[Analyst]

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Chris is a very nice guy and I've played a bit with him over the past few days. He also plays TOURNAMENTS very well. He's one of the chip leaders at the end of Day 1 at Bay 101 this week, and I think he's got as good a shot as any at making the final table.

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QUASI-SPOILER WARNING/Shooting Stars Update
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Stopped in on my way home from work to see who was left. It was down to 17 players, and the "name" players left were Dan Negreanu, Phil Gordon and - Chris Moneymaker. The buzz was that Moneymaker really can play tournaments.

Negreanu looked to be somewhat short-stacked (50-60k?), Moneymaker average (just over 100k), and Gordon was probably the chip leader with a huge stack of over 300k.

[jayadd]

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Well, after talking w/ JA Sucker last night, all I'll say is that Chris might have some work to do on his 20-200 spread limit game.

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are you kidding me Why on earth would he need work. Anyone of us with an IQ over 30 (Varkoni misses the cut at 28) would enjoy the ability to make what ever mistakes he posibly can. The guy is set for life. He is probably the first WSOP champion or any major tourney winner of 1 million or more who was able to say " this was fun but not what i want to do for a living."
Some people are so fast to become critics when someone succeeds. No one has mentioned Varkoni and his idiotic comments he made that the camera caught. (as you can tell i have issues with varkoni but thats for another time)

[Ulysses]

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Well, after talking w/ JA Sucker last night, all I'll say is that Chris might have some work to do on his 20-200 spread limit game.

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are you kidding me Why on earth would he need work. Anyone of us with an IQ over 30 (Varkoni misses the cut at 28) would enjoy the ability to make what ever mistakes he posibly can. The guy is set for life. He is probably the first WSOP champion or any major tourney winner of 1 million or more who was able to say " this was fun but not what i want to do for a living."
Some people are so fast to become critics when someone succeeds. No one has mentioned Varkoni and his idiotic comments he made that the camera caught. (as you can tell i have issues with varkoni but thats for another time)

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Huh? What is your point? The guy obviously is interested in playing poker. Why wouldn't he need work on games that he's not terribly good at?

If I recall, the WSOP he won was worth 2M or so. He sold how much of his action, 20%, maybe more? Let's say 20%, that leaves him w/ 1.6M. After taxes that's about 800k. That's a nice chunk of money, but that's just about enough to buy a not terribly nice home around where I live. Of course, that money goes a lot farther in Tennessee, but buy a house, pay some bills, etc. and it would be pretty easy to lose the rest in big poker games. So, yes, if he's going to play high limit poker (and I'm not talking about a little 20-200 spread game), he definitely should work on his game where it needs work.

[krazyace5]

Gotta know, What did Varkoni say or do, that was before I started watching poker.

[Nottom]

[ QUOTE ]
Anyone of us with an IQ over 30 (Varkoni misses the cut at 28) would enjoy the ability to make what ever mistakes he posibly can. The guy is set for life. He is probably the first WSOP champion or any major tourney winner of 1 million or more who was able to say " this was fun but not what i want to do for a living."


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I think its funny that you mention Varkoni here since MM is the one who seems to be taking a shot at this whol ehigh stakes poker thing and Varkoni is the guy who seems to be happy to sit back and enjoy his $Million.

[Ruddiger]

moneymaker made the final 6

Phil Gordon 1,238,000
2 Masoud Shojaei 416,000
3 Chris Moneymaker 215,000
4 Scott Wilson 203,000
5 Mark Mache 175,000
6 Susan Kim 172,000

[M.B.E.]

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If I recall, the WSOP he won was worth 2M or so. He sold how much of his action, 20%, maybe more? Let's say 20%, that leaves him w/ 1.6M. After taxes that's about 800k.

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That can't be right; even if the top marginal rate is 50%, surely it doesn't kick in until at least 400K. I always thought that in Canada the tax rate was much higher than in the U.S., but here the top marginal rate (federal and provincial combined) is less than 50%.

Also keep in mind that Nevada (where he earned the money) has no state income tax. I don't know if Moneymaker would have to pay Tennessee state income tax on his win, but I doubt it.

Also I think his gross prize was closer to $2.5M than $2M.

So I don't really know, but I suspect that after taxes he'd be left with considerably more than 800K.

[eMarkM]

We'll get to see Chris play on the WPT:

Standings going into final table:

Seat 1 Chris Moneymaker 215,000 Chips

Seat 2 Susan Kim 172,000 Chips

Seat 3 Masoud Shojaci 416,000 Chips

Seat 4 Mark Macha 175,000 Chips

Seat 5 Scott Wilson 203,000 Chips

Seat 6 Phil Gordon 1,238,000 Chips

[driller]

In the immortal words of Jim Rome: "Scoreboard"

[M.B.E.]

I liked this article by Jay Greenspan about playing in a game with Moneymaker at Foxwoods. The article is on pokersavvy.com.