Tag: Chris Moneymaker

Over nearly 50 years, the Main Event at the World Series of Poker has witnessed extraordinary dramas and created huge stars. The Paul Phua Poker School picks the top 10 events you really need to know

How did the poker tournament expression “a chip and a chair” come about? Why is 10-2 known as “the Doyle Brunson”? Where did the poker movie Rounders get its final hand? How did Phil Hellmuth become famous at 24? In what way did the WSOP’s 2003 live tournament change the face of internet poker? All is revealed below. If only history lessons at school had been this fun…

1970-1: The World Series of Poker is born

The very first World Series of Poker was not even a tournament: the pros were simply asked to elect the man they thought was the best player. Legend has it that at first they all voted for themselves, so a winner was only announced after they were told to name the second best player! That man was Johnny Moss, and the very next year, when a tournament structure was introduced to the WSOP, Moss proved the vote right by winning fair and square. He went on to be known as “The Grand Old Man of Poker”. Read more

1976-1977: How the “Doyle Brunson hand” got its name

There are lucky hands, and then there is the “Doyle Brunson hand” – a hand so ridiculously  lucky that it forever more bears the name of the man who played it. Aged 83, Doyle “Texas Dolly” Brunson has now won 10 WSOP bracelets, but none more spectacularly than his two back-to-back Main Event wins. Holding just 10-2, he made a house to knock out his heads-up opponent Jesse Alto in 1976. Incredibly, the very next year he again made a house with 10-2 to knock out Gary “Bones” Berland. Read more

1982: Jack Straus and the original “chip and a chair”

You may have heard the poker expression, “as long as you’ve got a chip and a chair…” It means that no matter how few chips you are left with in a poker tournament, you always have a chance. But you may not know that this saying was born at the World Series of Poker in 1982. The story of how Jack “Treetop” Straus recovered from a single chip to win the Main Event and $520,000 is not just the greatest underdog story in poker, but possibly in any sport. Read more

1988: Johnny Chan retains his WSOP title with the “Rounders” hand

Johnny Chan, nicknamed “The Orient Express” for the speed with which he demolished his opponents, was one of the finest players of the 1980s. Not content with winning the World Series of Poker Main Event in 1987, he repeated the feat with a back-to-back championship title in 1988. And he did it with a trap so well laid that this final hand against Erik Seidel was immortalised in the poker movie Rounders… Read more

1989: Phil Hellmuth becomes the youngest ever WSOP champion

Johnny Chan nearly pulled off the historic feat of a WSOP Main Event hat-trick. For a third year in a row, he found himself heads-up after defeating all comers. Even better, he was up against some inexperienced young kid of 24. Unluckily for him, that young man just happened to be Phil Hellmuth, and he was so focused on winning that he’d left a message on his answerphone saying, “You’re talking to the 1989 world champion of poker”. This was the WSOP that propelled “the Poker Brat” to fame. Read more

1995: Barbara Enright is the first woman to reach the WSOP final table

When asked to name a female poker pro, you might immediately think of Annie Duke, Vanessa Selbst, or Liv Boeree. But to players of an older generation, Barbara Enright’s name would roll first off the tongue. As the first (and still only) woman to reach the final table of the WSOP, she paved the way for future female players in what is still a very male-dominated environment. And she would have done better than fifth place, too, if it wasn’t for a painful bad beat… Read more

1997: Stu Ungar wins a historic third WSOP Main Event

Ask any poker player who was the greatest of all time, and there’s a good chance they’ll say Stu Ungar. With a photographic memory that got him banned from blackjack tables, and poker reads so acute he once won a $50,000 WSOP heads-up event by calling with 10-high, Stu “The Kid” Ungar was one of the greatest natural talents ever. But after winning the world championship in 1980 and 1981, he fell prey to drug addiction. His extraordinary story was to have a triumphant conclusion at the 1997 World Series of Poker… Read more

2003: Chris Moneymaker launches the internet poker boom

Was there ever a poker player more aptly named than Chris Moneymaker? In 2003, the accountant and amateur poker player turned a $39 entry to an online satellite tournament into $2.5 million when he won the WSOP Main Event. His victory was the personification of the American Dream that anyone can make it big, and inspired a whole generation of online poker players. Over the next three years, entries to the WSOP Main Event increased tenfold. Read more

2007: Annette Obrestadt becomes the youngest WSOP bracelet winner

Annette Obrestadt was a few days short of her 19th birthday when she won the World Series of Poker Europe, in the WSOP’s first official bracelet tournament outside America. She was young; she was a woman; she was part of a new breed of aggressive online players who would change the face of poker strategy. Annette Obrestadt once won an online poker tournament playing “blind”, with her cards covered up – but she would need all her resources to triumph over the WSOPE Main Event… Read more

2012: Antonio Esfandiari wins $18m in the Big One for One Drop

The Main Event of the World Series of Poker has traditionally awarded the biggest first prize of all poker tournaments. But a side-event of the WSOP, first held in 2012, dwarfed even these sums. This was the Big One for One Drop, in aid of the water charity set up by the founder of Cirque du Soleil, and the first prize was a record $18 million. Antonio Esfandiari, a former magician, pulled off the greatest trick of his career: making a final table that included Phil Hellmuth, Brian Rast and Sam Trickett disappear. Read more

In the ninth of a 10-part series on the World Series of Poker, the Paul Phua Poker School recalls how an 18-year-old girl won £1 million

Annette Obrestadt was just 18 when she won the Main Event, and £1 million, at the first World Series of Poker Europe. It made her the youngest ever bracelet winner – so young, in fact, that it would be more than two years before she was legally allowed to play in Las Vegas. Coming four years after Chris Moneymaker turned $39 into $2.5m at the World Series of Poker (WSOP) in 2003, this striking victory by a young woman over established pros such as Gus Hansen, who finished in tenth place, showed just how much Moneymaker’s win had changed the face of poker.
Moneymaker, more than anyone, was responsible for the boom in online poker. Obrestadt was very much an online player: she had already racked up $800,000 in MTT cashes before entering the WSOPE. In an interview directly after winning the title, Obrestadt summed up why the new breed of internet players were making waves in live play: “I’ve played thousands of tournaments online. Most professionals only play 60 or so live tournaments a year so I think I have an advantage there.”

Who is Annette Obrestadt?

Born in 1988, Annette Obrestadt began playing poker at the age of 15 – hence her screen name, “Annette_15”. While Chris Moneymaker spun up his poker fortune from $39, Obrestadt says she never invested any of her own money at all, building up her poker bankroll initially from freeroll tournaments.
Living in Norway, Obrestadt developed a highly aggressive playing style typical of many Scandinavian players: her other screen name is “The Huntress”. Blessed with a natural talent, she also experimented and worked hard at her poker strategy. She is famous for once winning a tournament playing “blind”, with her cards covered up. She did this to show “just how important it is to play position and to pay attention to the players at the table”.
Her win at the WSOPE was no fluke. Since then she has amassed nearly $4m in live tournament earnings, ranking her second amongst all Norwegian players, male or female.

How Annette Obrestadt crushed the World Series of Poker Europe

The 2007 WSOPE Main Event, held in London’s Casino at the Empire on Leicester Square, was the first time that official gold bracelets had been awarded outside Las Vegas (the WSOP has now expanded to Asia Pacific as well as Europe). Obrestadt worked hard for hers, building her stack up on the final table from just half that of the chip leader. The Scandinavian-heavy final nine made for a lot of aggressive action, but it was the final heads-up poker battle that really counted.
Obrestadt was pitted against John Tabatabai. Their single combat lasted for nearly as many hands as the rest of the final table put together. Finally, Obrestadt got the miracle flop that would clinch her victory: on a flop of 7-6-5, she pushed all-in with top set, while her opponent held two pair and needed runner-runner quads to survive.
With the legal age in Las Vegas being 21, it is likely that Obrestadt’s record as the youngest ever bracelet winner will stand forever.
 

Who is Annette Obrestadt? Poker player profile

  • Born in 1988, Annette Obrestadt started playing online poker at the age of 15, under the screen name “Annette_15”.
  • Before switching to live poker she had won $800,000 in online MTTs, winning one tournament with her cards covered up.
  • In winning the Main Event of the World Series of Poker Europe in 2007, Annette Obrestadt became the youngest ever bracelet winner.
  • Her first prize in the WSOPE was £1 million, and she now has nearly $4m in live poker tournament earnings.

Read the eighth of a 10-part series on the World Series of Poker, and find out how an amateur turned a $39 online satellite into a $2.5m Main Event win
Or come back tomorrow for the last part in our WSOP series.

In the eighth of a 10-part series on the World Series of Poker, the Paul Phua Poker School recalls how an amateur turned a $39 online satellite into a $2.5m Main Event win

Of all the great moments in the history of the World Series of Poker (WSOP), the most transformative for the future of the game as a whole was surely Chris Moneymaker’s victory in 2003. It was a personification of the American Dream that anyone, regardless of their background, can make it big.
Chris Moneymaker entered a $39 online satellite tournament, which led to a $600 satellite, which won him a seat at the Main Event of the WSOP. That $39 investment was to net Chris Moneymaker a first prize of $2.5 million.
That year was also notable for ESPN expanding the coverage and hole-card cameras being introduced on the final table. This truly was the beginning of the internet-fuelled poker boom, with entries to the WSOP Main Event increasing tenfold from 839 in 2003 to 8,773 in 2006. Poker writers now refer to this as “the Moneymaker Effect”.

Who is Chris Moneymaker?

Can there ever have been a poker champion more aptly named than “Moneymaker”? It sounds like an online poker nickname, but in fact his German ancestors made coins, and chose “Moneymaker” as an Anglicisation of their surname “Nurmacher”.
Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Chris Moneymaker further lived up to his name by studying accounting at university, becoming a comptroller. He was just 27 when he entered the World Series of Poker Main Event. Amazingly, it was his first live poker tournament.
Even so, Chris Moneymaker played well enough on Day One to catch the eye of professional sports handicapper Lou Diamond, who prophetically tipped him as his “dark horse to win the whole tournament”.

Chris Moneymaker knocks out Phil Ivey to make the WSOP final table

Chris Moneymaker did have a stroke of luck to get to the final table. With 10 players left, and holding trip Queens with an Ace kicker, he called Phil Ivey’s all-in bet on the turn only to find himself facing down a full house. A lucky Ace came on the river to change the course of history – sending the amateur to the final table, and denying Phil Ivey his coveted world championship win.
Once there, Chris Moneymaker made up in courage what he lacked in experience. The final table got underway at 2pm, and became heads-up at 12.30am. Moneymaker was pitted against Sammy Farha, and by now had twice his stack. Over the next hour, however, the more experienced pro chipped away at the amateur’s stack until the two were nearly even.
It was then that Chris Moneymaker decided to make his stand.
Both men flopped a flush draw. Moneymaker’s spades were higher, with K7 to Farha’s Q9, but the 9-high flop gave Farha top pair. Both players checked. The turn gave Moneymaker an open-ended straight draw as well as his flush draw, so when Farha now bet out with 300,000, Moneymaker re-raised him to 800,000. Still with top pair and a (lesser) flush draw, Farha called, but he must have felt rattled.

Chris Moneymaker pulls off a historic bluff

The river was a red 3: no possible help to either man. But at this point, sensing weakness, Moneymaker made a huge all-in shove.
Farha tanked. Top pair is not usually a hand you can fold when heads-up. Then again, Moneymaker had bet his tournament life on this hand – would he do that on a bluff? And would an amateur be capable of such daring against a seasoned pro?
Farha eventually folded, leaving his stack fatally crippled at 1.8m to Moneymaker’s 6.6m, and the bluff entered the annals of poker history as one of the most audacious the WSOP has seen.

Who is Chris Moneymaker? Poker player profile

  • Born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1975, Chris Moneymaker was an accountant before turning to poker full-time
  • Moneymaker turned a $39 online satellite entry into a $2.5m win at the World Series of Poker Main Event in 2003
  • His autobiography is entitled Moneymaker: How an Amateur Poker Player Turned $40 into $2.5 Million at the World Series of Poker (2005)
  • The online poker boom that followed Chris Moneymaker’s WSOP victory has become known as “the Moneymaker Effect”

Why not go back and read part 7 of our 10 part WSOP series which is about only player to have won three Main Event championships. 
Or come back tomorrow for part 9.
 

With poker millionaires Charlie Carrel and “Xavi666” making headlines for their big wins, Paul Phua explains why it can take years to become an overnight success.

Two players deserve particular congratulations this week. One is a player from Panama known by his online name of “Xavi666”, who has just won over a million dollars in the PokerStars Guaranteed Sunday Million tournament. He is the 200th poker millionaire created on the online poker site.
The other is the personable young player Charlie Carrel. He proved a good ambassador for the game of poker when he was interviewed on a Channel 4 series in the UK called How’d You Get So Rich? It’s not often poker stories cross over to the mainstream media, but many national papers reported on the TV programme’s featurette on how Charlie Carrel turned his initial online stake of just £10 into £3 million.

The reason these stories have attracted so much attention is that they feed into a common dream about poker: that it’s an easy way to get rich quick.

The most famous example in poker history is when humble accountant Chris Moneymaker turned a $39 investment on PokerStars into $2.5 million in 2003. He entered a $39 satellite tournament, which got him into a $600 satellite, which won him a seat in the Main Event at the World Series of Poker – at which this gifted amateur won the whole thing.
But the truth is, all these players have put in a lot of work behind the scenes that you don’t see. I touched on this subject before in my blog on The Iceberg Illusion. Take young Charlie Carrel. He told the TV presenter Katherine Ryan that he started off at very low stakes, playing for 16 hours a day to improve his game, while living with his grandmother. Having studied Maths, Further Maths and Physics at A-Level, he made a detailed study of all the odds. He applied sensible bankroll management, only moving up to a new blind level when he was sure he had mastered the one he was on.
As to Xavi666, after winning his PokerStars million he said that “finally everything came together”. In other words, he had been working and playing hard to reach this point.
There’s a couple of old sayings that I find very insightful. One is, “It takes years to become an overnight success.” The other is, “The harder I work, the luckier I seem to get.”
What they both mean is that every time you see an actor, musician or poker player suddenly become famous, or seemingly “get lucky”, the chances are they have been perfecting their craft, unnoticed by the general public, for many years before that. When opportunity knocks, they are ready for it.
Certainly when I started at poker, I treated it as a challenge, something to work at. I had fun, of course, as I love the game, but I also had the desire to learn and improve. I regularly sat down to marathon high-stakes cash games with some of the world’s top poker pros, not because I felt I would “get lucky” against them, but so that I could learn from their strategy. That was nearly a decade ago, and I still analyse every big hand at the end of a big poker session to see if I could play it better if faced with a similar situation in the future.
So think about it. Are you going to play poker just for fun, staying in more pots than you should do with poor odds of success, in the hopes of getting lucky? Or are you going to play for fun and for profit, improving your game and learning new strategies over time so that, when you do get your shot at a big tournament, you have the skill and experience to become the next “overnight success”?
If it’s the latter, there is good news: some of the poker pros I often play with have kindly agreed to share their top tips and strategy advice with you, my loyal Paul Phua Poker School followers. There’s quite a line-up to my new video series. We have two big Dans (Cates and Colman), as well as Phil Ivey. Discover the full list of names and watch the trailer here.
So if you do dream of becoming the next Xavi666 or Charlie Carrel, a good first step is to go to the Paul Phua Poker YouTube channel and subscribe, so you don’t miss any Paul Phua Poker School videos. It’s free!