Most professional poker players spend the lion’s share of their playing time in live games. The big-name tournament players are famous because of the television coverage of their live play. Lots of these players play online, but it’s not like the live tournament scene. Most celebrity poker players are sponsored by an online poker site. They wear the site’s logo in live events and play on the site for periodic promotions or whenever they want to.
Full Tilt Poker has professionals Howard Lederer, Phil Ivey, Chris Ferguson, John Juanda, Jennifer Harman, Phil Gordon, Erick Lindgren, Erik Seidel, Clonie Gowan, Andy Bloch, Mike Matusow, Gus Hansen and Allen Cunningham on their team.
PokerStars has Chris Moneymaker, Greg Raymer, Joe Hachem, Barry Greenstein, Isabelle Mercier, Daniel Negreanu, Tom McEvoy, Victor Ramdin, Vanessa Rouso, and Humberto Brenes.
UltimateBet sponsors professionals Phil Hellmuth, Antonio Esfandiari, Jim Worth, Devin Porter and Annie Duke.
Anyone who plays poker knows the story of Chris Moneymaker. Back in 2003, Moneymaker was an accountant when he won a seat in the $10,000 main event at the World Series of Poker through a $39 online satellite tournament. The WSOP main event was Moneymaker’s first-ever live tournament, but stress didn’t seem to faze him as he turned his $39 into $2.5 million and a World Championship title. Moneymaker’s success has led to every regular Joe Pokerplayer attempting to repeat his magic by winning their own WSOP seat online.
Moneymaker has taken a lot of flack from poker fans because he’s won very little at the poker tables since his big win, and because of the way he played some of his hands during his WSOP win. This included an insane bluff against Sam Farha with only King-high that most people consider to be the turning point in the match. Moneymaker’s aggressive and tactical play throughout the tournament allowed him to pull off this bluff, and what winning poker player doesn’t get by on a little luck from time to time? Moneymaker played Farha in a rematch on PokerStars a few months later and that time Farha came out on top.
Since winning the WSOP title Moneymaker has become a spokesperson for Harrah’s Entertainment and for PokerStars, the site on which he initially won his WSOP buy-in. Moneymaker spends more time working for Harrah’s and PokerStars than he does at the poker tables, but he has found some success since winning his only WSOP bracelet, including a second-place finish in the WPT Shooting Stars main event during WPT Season 2.
Moneymaker could play poker for the rest of his life until the day he dies and he’ll still likely be remembered for two things. First, of course, is his incredible underdog win in the 2003 WSOP. And secondly, he will go down in history as one of the big reasons behind the online poker boom after demonstrating to the world that far-fetched poker dreams can become a reality.
