Chris Moneymaker Is the real name of the twenty-seven year old who won the 2003 World Series of Poker No Limit Hold'em Championship. His story is fit for a Hollywood movie, beginning with winning his entry into the Series via the PokerStars online card room. His total investment was forty dollars, and he won $2,500,000. After winning his way into the event, he realized it would be difficult to scrape together airfare and hotel costs. His father, Mike and a friend, David Gamble (also his real name) put up some money to cover the cost for the trip in exchange for a portion of his winnings. He also donated $25,000 of his prize to cancer research.

Christopher Brian Moneymaker took the World Series of Poker 2003 by storm. There are many people who insist that it was the luck of the cards that earned Chris his victory. Although, luck played a part in his victory (it plays a part in every victory), he showed that he has the skill to play with the big boys. He had been playing three years before he won the Series, but had never played a live tournament. The first day he had Johnny Chan sitting on his right and Phil Ivey on his left. He said that he got outplayed and that night decided to not be afraid anymore. If he got beat, he got beat, but he was going to play his game. Indeed he did. He mixed it up beautifully and made some great plays along the way. The one hand that sticks in a lot of people's minds is when he went all in with his pocket 8s against Humberto Brenes's pocket A's. He caught the 8 giving him a set and sent Humberto to the rail. Yes, he got extremely lucky, but don't consider what he did to be a bad play. If he had known that Humberto was holding the pocket aces, then yes that would have been a terrible mistake, but he didn't know.

The play that Chris made that I loved was against Russ "Dutch" Boyd. Moneymaker was holding pocket threes while Dutch held KQ. The flop came down 925 and Chris bet $100,000 into the pot. Dutch Boyd thought, and then moved all-in. After thinking for awhile, Chris called the bet. Before the two of them flip their cards over, Chris asked for low cards proving that he read Dutch correctly in having high cards, no pair.  This key move crippled Dutch and helped give Chris the chips he needed to win the tournament.

He still uses his screen name of Money800 when he plays at PokerStars and tries to answer questions when people direct them at him.  Once in awhile, he has to turn his chat off, but that is rare. Chris won the final hand with a full house, fives full of fours, defeating veteran ring game player Sam Farha's top pair. Sammy Farha got 1.3 million for his second place finish. Chris was an accountant at the time of his win. He now travels the world as a spokesman for various poker related products and plays tournaments when he can. The one thing Chris will never be able to do is use what he did to help him achieve his victory in 2003... being an unknown.