Champions of the World: Chris Moneymaker on How Winning the World Championship Changed His Life

Images courtesy of the RunGood Poker Series

In 2003, poker was changed forever by the man who won the WSOP Main Event. Chris Smith walked into Binion’s Horseshoe in Las Vegas, Nevada, gave his last name as ‘Moneymaker’ for the ESPN crew filming that year’s Main Event, and stepped forward to the felt.

A week later, everyone’s favorite new poker player had won the $2.5m top prize and changed the face of poker for everyone who came after him.

The Moneymaker Effect kicked off the ‘Poker Boom’ of the early 2000s that saw poker grow bigger than anyone could have imagined. We spoke to Chris Moneymaker to piece together those magic moments that changed his life beyond measure.

That Phil Ivey Hand

The summer he won the Main Event, Chris Moneymaker won a pivotal hand to knock out Phil Ivey. The Poker Hall of Famer Ivey was 83% to win the hand from turn to river, only for Moneymaker to win from behind with all the chips already committed.

Here’s the hand in question:

If Chris had lost to Ivey with 10 players remaining, what would have happened? Could Ivey have gone on to win instead, and the Moneymaker Effect never have taken place?

If I had lost the hand to Phil Ivey, I’m still the chip leader or maybe I’m second to Ivey; I don’t feel like I get 10th place, Chris says. I feel like I’m not going to just punt off. I’m still going to make a run and get in the top three or four. But my immediate poker career would probably have taken a big hit.

When he considers whether not winning the Main Event would have changed his career plans, Chris believes that he would never have been able to leave his role as an accountant behind.

I probably would have gone back to work then fallen into a different life. I’m probably not a professional poker player to this day because I don’t have the endorsements and opportunities that I have today.

Back to the Action

After winning the 2003 Main Event, Chris didn’t play another event as world champion until February of the following year, but as he tells us, this was down to necessity, not choice.

Technically, I cashed the next event I played, which was the WPT Shooting Star event. There weren’t many tournaments to go to back then. It’s not like it is now, when there were tournaments all the time. It was literally one of the few tournaments that were coming up that I could go to.

The world champion not being able to find a game seems beyond strange, given how frequent tournament series are on the schedule these days. Finishing as runner-up to Phil Gordon in the WPT Shooting Star event, Chris was unlucky at a key moment.

We got down to three-handed, and the short stack moved all-in. Phil Gordon moved all-in over the top, and I had pocket jacks. I had to ask the question ‘If he busts and I bust, do I get second?’ just to make sure, I was so new to the rules. They told me I had second place [if that happened].

Chris moved all-in and had the best of it, with Phil Gordon holding ace-seven.

He hit the ace. If he doesn’t, I’m a monster chip leader heads-up and probably win that event. As it turned out, I got second, and it was pretty cool. There was a lot of attention around me and a lot of cameras. When it came back on TV, they focused on me. ‘We have Moneymaker, we have Moneymaker.’

Unlike in the WSOP Main Event, Chris has seen a big event from a completely different perspective, something that helped him a lot in the long-term.

In the World Series, I was always the chip leader. When there were 18 players left in the WPT Shooting Star event, I was in last place, where I stayed almost all the way up to the final table. I had to transition to playing from last place, not in the lead.

The Ultimate Support System

Over the last two decades, Chris has enjoyed huge success, cashing for millions at the live felt and carving out plenty of success online too. Over that time, he’s joked about how lucky his wife was to meet someone so successful and handsome. The truth is that Chris knows full well how fortunate he is to have met his partner in life.

Obviously, I know I’m the lucky one, he says with a smile. She’s amazing and has a huge heart; she is the perfect partner, and she supports me in all that I do. We both have a very good understanding of what we want out of the relationship, what her goals in life are, and what mine are.

Whether it’s at the felt, at home, or between the trials and tribulations of poker and family life, Chris puts a lot of his success at his wife’s door.

She supports me 100%, and I support her 100%, we’re a really good team, and I could not do what I do without having her to have my back. She builds me up and gives me a lot of support; I’m very lucky.

Taking on the Triton Tour

While the WSOP Main Event victory of 2003 is Chris’ biggest ever win for $2.5m, in the Triton Poker Series event back in 2023 in London, he finished in fifth place for over $2m. He then won a Triton Poker High Roller Series event the next year. While Chris always wants to play well, he knows that it is impossible and speaks with pride in playing his A-Game during Triton events.

I really want to play well when I’m playing the toughest competition in the world. Playing against these guys at Triton, some of the best in the world, I feel like it really brings out my A-Game.

I ask Chris if a lot of his game is now built on the instincts he’s built up over such a long time, or whether anyone could learn to play the way he does and win like the former world champion.

I’m trying to teach a couple of people right now. Unfortunately, there are things I can’t really explain. I can explain tells, observation, and things that I look for, and a lot of that people can look for. It’s not easy to see; you have to really be paying attention and have an eye for it, but then there are some other things that I do that are just kind of instinctive.

These might be the ‘secret sauce’ moments that make Chris the player he is. We’ve all seen the hand where he gets lucky to scupper Phil Ivey’s chances, but there are ten times the poker hands where an inspired play set Chris apart from his opponents. His natural modesty guides him to talk up others and downplay his own play, but he admits there are some ways he plays elite poker.

I see when people are weak, and [if I] have a feeling, I’m not afraid to pull the trigger. Most of the stuff I do is teachable, but there are definitely things that are more gut instinct and ‘street poker.’

The ‘Sliding Doors’ Moment

In the past 23 years, many poker experts have speculated what might have happened had Chris Moneymaker made 2003 the year he broke through and won the World Championship for $2.5m from an online satellite qualifier costing 80 bucks. Would it have been ‘The Fossilman Effect’ when Greg Raymer won the Main Event 12 months later?

You never know. Greg was cut from the same cloth as an everyman, says Chris. He was a little bit more of a pro than me, and with Greg being a patent attorney… when you see Greg, he comes across as a very intelligent person.

It was kind of like [Robert] Varkonyi the year before. He was an amateur. Hellmuth shaved his head when he won! It should have been ‘The Varkonyi Effect,’ but the guy went to MIT; he was super-smart, so people couldn’t quite relate to him.

While Varkonyi’s win in 2002 didn’t hit the spot, Chris’s victory did. Even now, all these years later, he credits his ‘table image’ as influential in this social phenomenon.

People relate to Greg more, but unfortunately, for him, he comes off as intelligent. I come across as a dumb hick, just some lucky guy that won a poker tournament, and if I can do it, they can do it, and that’s what inspired it. You can see me drinking beer and playing 5c/10c with you and your buddies, and that’s what took hold.

When I ask Chris who his own favorite world champions of the past are, his answer is as revealing as it is unpredictable.

Me, Greg [Raymer] and Joe [Hachem], were really close for many years. I still consider them friends. There are others I like and know very well, and think are really good people. The Michigan boys, Joe Cada and Ryan Riess, Daniel Weinman seem all right, and then The Grinder. I don’t know a whole lot about the others.

Who Will Win Gold This Summer?

With the 57th annual World Series of Poker getting under way, Chris is excited to be taking to the felt alongside his Americas Cardroom colleagues and thinks it could be a very big summer for Team ACR.

I have been representing ACR for seven years. I’m super excited with the company and the direction that we’re going. It’s just been a phenomenal ride, and as far as who has the best shot at winning a bracelet this summer, I think it’s gonna be one of our new guys.

New guys? ACR are adding to their roster, and Chris is careful not to release the names.

I don’t think it’s been announced yet, but it’s coming up before the WSOP starts. We’re going to be announcing three new Team Pros. They have the best chance, they’re playing the most volume, and honestly, they’re probably the best players that we have on the team. They’re my picks to do something if I don’t.

Two decades ago, no one outside of Chris Moneymaker’s camp would have predicted that the accountant from Tennessee would have picked him to win the World Series of Poker Main Event. Today, just as in 2003, he is as charming and magnetic as ever, inspiring thousands of players every year to dream of traveling to Las Vegas and becoming world champion.

It’s just the effect he has.