Moneymaker Takes Home $36,259 In Victory
Published on March 17th, 2014 5:24 pm EST
It was like 2003 all over again on Sunday, as Chris Moneymaker took down the Hollywood Poker Open St. Louis Regional Championship for $36,259. The event, which had a buy-in of $1,800, ended up attracting a total of 67 entrants. Moneymaker was able to ride a big stack and several fortunate hands to a victory. The final hand of the tournament came when a short-stacked Frank Wyville decided to push his remaining chips into the middle holding 5s-4s, only to be called by Moneymaker and his dominating Kc-5c.
With his victory, "Team Pokerstars Pro" member Chris Moneymaker earned himself a seat in Hollywood Poker Open's $2,500 Championship event at the M Resort Spa Casino in Las Vegas in June.
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Chris Moneymaker is credited with being the catalyst for the "poker boom" following his victory in the 2003 World Series of Poker.
Moneymaker qualified for the '03 WSOP main event through Pokerstars and eventually went on to shock the world by taking down the tournament for $2,500,000. Moneymaker's win was highly publicized (he appeared on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno) and resulted in millions of people deciding to open online poker accounts at the likes of Pokerstars, Party Poker and others.
Chris Moneymaker was the mild-mannered accountant who bumbled his way to a tournament victory, outlasting the professional "sharks" such as Sammy Farha and Johnny Chan. This just helped to fan the flames of a poker boom that made rooms like Pokerstars and Party Poker into multi-billion dollar companies.
Shortly after winning the WSOP main event, Moneymaker inked a sponsorship deal with Pokerstars and continues to be a member of "Team Pokerstars Pro" over a decade after his victory.
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Moneymaker currently has about $3.55 million in total lifetime "live" tournament cashes, which means that he has brought in about $100k in cashes per year since his big win in 2003.
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Filed Under: Tournament Results
