Chris Moneymaker is often credited to being the man who sparked the revival in the global poker industry after he won the 2003 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event and took home $2.5 million after gaining entry to the event from a $86 online poker buy-in at the PokerStars website.
Moneymaker was a nominee to the 2016 Poker Hall of Fame but did not make it into the illustrious PHOF as only two nominees get shortlisted each year.
There were a number of people in the poker community who criticized Moneymaker’s nomination to the PHOF as they stated that apart from his 2003 WSOP win, Moneymaker hadn’t really set the poker world on fire.
ALL IN Magazine
He ignored the criticism and stated that he was happy to be nominated and admitted that while he hadn’t really won any significant tournaments after the 2003 WSOP, he had done his fair share to promote the game of poker and take it to the next level. The poker pro visited Atlantic City, New Jersey to be a part of the PokerStars Festival.
PokerStars, the biggest online poker website in the world is running a mega poker festival from the November 1 to 5 at the Resorts Casino Hotel in Atlantic City. This is the first live poker festival that the online poker giant has organized since it was forced to exit the US market. There are a number of exciting poker events taking place and Chris Moneymaker was happy to take part in a number of them.
Moneymaker took part in the $350 Sunday Special $75,000 Guaranteed event and made it to the final table where he was prepared to battle it out with Jesse Elliot. However the two came to an agreement and decided to split the prize money, which allowed Moneymaker to cashout $15,942.
The poker pro continued his good run finishing third in the $50 Six-Max PLO Rebuy winning $1,900 and third in the $100 Heads-Up Pot-Limit Omaha taking home $550.
In a statement, Moneymaker said
This is the most unique poker event I've been to. It's a really cool venue
The poker pro is looking forward to taking part in the $1,100 Main Event and has high hopes of winning the event.
The PHOF nominee believes that the PokerStars festival in 2017 can be better and bigger if the company spent some more money marketing the event and sorting out a few of the issues that players have raised this year.
