Moneymaker doing the book tour

[bwana devil]

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Commentary: Cedric Golden
Poker champ's rags-to-riches saga

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

The chips were clattering on the fine felt tables of Fado Irish Pub on Monday night when I went in to meet professional poker's newest phenom.

Chris Moneymaker (yep, that's his real name), the Internet generation's first World Series of Poker champion, was in town to play against and offer poker tips to a few dozen wannabe world champions, all eager to take their best shot at the 29-year-old, rags-to-riches card player.

I sat down at the table and a host handed me $1,000 in chips. Don't get excited, this was just for show and for all I know, he could have handed me a stack of Doritos. But the game was spirited, with Moneymaker dealing the first few hands in between signing autographs and posing for photos.

I've been playing cards for 25 years, but I was about as sure of myself as the barber who styles Scotty Nguyen's mullet. But since it was free, I figured, what the heck?

Moneymaker was in Austin on a promotional tour. He has written a book in which he details how winning the 2003 World Series of Poker changed his life and how he's handled the accompanying fame.

Part of that is dealing with locals who want to take him on at the table.

"I get that a lot, especially on the road," he said. "People invite me to their private home games. Everybody thinks they can play and they want to challenge you."

Before Moneymaker and 2004 World Series of Poker champ Greg "Fossilman" Raymer came onto the scene, established parlor vets like Johnny Chan, Sam Farha and Dan Harrington dominated the game for the past two decades (I still call it a game, although I know some call it a sport). However, cyberspace has created a generation of newcomers.

Young players like Moneymaker -- who started out playing nickel-dime-quarter dealer's choice games like 7-27, Acey-Deucey and Chase the Queen in the 1990s -- graduated to the unlimited gaming choices made possible by the Internet.

Moneymaker credits the 1998 movie "Rounders," starring Matt Damon as a law student/poker player who takes down the local hold 'em king, with inspiring him to believe he could win outside his weekly game.

Moneymaker, who had a $55,000 salary as a 27-year-old accountant in the Nashville, Tenn., area, turned a $39 pokerstars.net win and another online tournament victory over 59 players into a $10,000 buy-in for the 2003 World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.

With help from friends and family, he scraped together about $4,500 to cover the food and hotel expenses that come with staying in Vegas for the month-long event. He was one of 839 names on a bracket as long as Fremont Street, site of Binion's Horseshoe, the home of the 2003 tourney.

After an improbable journey through the bracket, including a takedown of the legendary Chan followed by a "king high" bluff against Farha, Moneymaker -- wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap to shield his face from the eyes of the more experienced players -- hit a full house on the final draw to eliminate Farha in the finals and earn $2.5 million.

He stayed another nine months at Deloitte & Touche, but his continued success in poker and the long hours playing online made it difficult to keep a 9 to 5 job, so he quit. His new lifestyle did not mix well with his home life either, and he and his wife, Kelly, the parents of a young daughter, divorced this year.

"It was hard because she didn't marry a poker player, but everything's good now," he said. "It was a tough adjustment."

Moneymaker hasn't won an offline tourney since the 2003 World Series of Poker, but he did collect a $200,000 second-place prize in a San Jose, Calif., event last year. Among his off-the-table projects are a pair of poker video games for Sony PlayStation and X-Box, his own line of poker chips and a movie deal about his life that is in the discussion phase. And there's the 2005 WSOP in June.

Taking on us pugs, Moneymaker did not play while wearing his trademark sunglasses -- he said the shades come out only when he goes up against the big boys -- and he actually won only a couple of hands before moving to another table.

For my part, I only went up against him twice and he folded both times. I did flop a set of treys to win a $700 pot and then went all in a couple of hands later to win with a nut straight. Bring on Teddy KGB.

Cedric Golden goes to Las Vegas once a year and plans on attending the 2005 World Series of Poker. He can be contacted at cgolden@statesman.com or 912-5944.

[MicroBob]

fairly decent story on moneymaker.

you're correct about him promoting the book.


Saw him on the Fox and Friends morning show last week. It was about 6:00am central and was going to bed and they said he coming on next so I decided to stay up and watch it.

It was predictably lame....he played one hand of hold-em against the 2 other anchors.

They asked him about this "$39 table-satellite-seat that he won".


One thing I didn't know that he mentioned in the interview (have only skimmed through his book in the bookstore but I assume this story is in there too)...

When he played in the 2nd qualifier tourney on stars the top 3 got WSOP seats...and 4th place got $8k in cash.
He needed the cash and was TRYING to dump his chips....even telling the others at the table he wanted the money and NOT the seat.
but he accidentally won the seat instead (and a star was born).

[ttleistdci]

[ QUOTE ]

When he played in the 2nd qualifier tourney on stars the top 3 got WSOP seats...and 4th place got $8k in cash.
He needed the cash and was TRYING to dump his chips....even telling the others at the table he wanted the money and NOT the seat.
but he accidentally won the seat instead (and a star was born).

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah he talked about this in the book.
He was pretty deep in debt, and didn't think he had a shot in the dark of making any money in the WSOP so he wanted the guaranteed third place money. His buddy was sweating him the whole way, and actually offered to buy 50% of him in the WSOP rather than letting him dump his chips off.

I won't go into any more detail for those who haven't read it yet because it's worth buying.

[DeadMoneyOC]

Yes! I thought it was a pretty good book. I bought it the other day in the airport and thought it was worth a read. Ill only read it once though, so maybe you should just borrow it from a sucker like myself who paid the 25$ for it.

[Greg (FossilMan)]

[ QUOTE ]
With help from friends and family, he scraped together about $4,500 to cover the food and hotel expenses that come with staying in Vegas for the month-long event.

He stayed another nine months at Deloitte & Touche,


[/ QUOTE ]

Here's a couple of examples of how you can't believe even the most basic "facts" in all of the articles that get written in newspapers and magazines.

Chris did not scrape together money to cover the month long expenses, since he only went out to the 2003 WSOP for the main event. I think he has said he arrived 2-4 days early to play some satellites and cash games.

Chris was already gone from D&T when he entered the 2003 WSOP, he was already working as the CFO for a small chain of restaurants. Or something like that, but certainly not at D&T.

Just like I've been written up as attending the University of Mississippi at Raleigh (I'm pretty sure there is no such school). And stories about the robbery attempt have frequently been very wrong with their facts also.

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

[bwana devil]

[ QUOTE ]
Here's a couple of examples of how you can't believe even the most basic "facts" in all of the articles that get written in newspapers and magazines.

[/ QUOTE ]

i actually wondered about that tidbit when reading the article as i understood it differently but figured I've never met Moneymaker and asked him this question and i guess the interviewer has. initially it seems like somewhat of a trivial item but it addresses the mindset that Moneymaker was in at the time of the mainevent.

thanks for clearing that up.