Chris Moneymaker on the Hall of Fame, Being an Ambassador and the State of the Game Today

When an accountant and amateur poker player from Tennessee won his way into the 2003 World Series of Poker Main Event through a $39 PokerStars satellite, took on the best professional players on the planet and captured a World title, the game, and countless people’s lives, were forever changed.

Chris Moneymaker’s legendary story helped ignite the poker boom, drawing huge numbers to the game, but it took a little time before he could see exactly what he’d done.

“I went back to work, because I didn’t realize I could be making enough money to retire or quit doing what I was doing,” Moneymaker told PokerNews. “It wasn’t really until it started airing on TV. They had it on a loop and I guess that really woke me up to the fact there was something to it. Poker was not just a passing fad. It looked like it was going to be around more than just a few years and somehow I was part of the driving factor behind all that.”

Moneymaker did enter into a sponsorship agreement with PokerStars right after winning the World title, but it was a rather small one, since neither he nor the company had any concept of what poker sponsorship should entail.

“They didn’t really know what to offer and I definitely didn’t know what to take,” Moneymaker said. “It didn’t seem like something that was going to significantly change my life. It wasn’t until a bit later on the next year that the money got significant.”

At this point, Moneymaker wasn’t really ready to take poker seriously enough to transition into a profession.

“I didn’t think of poker as a career really; it was more of a hobby and something I enjoyed on the side. Then my boss came in one day and said if you don’t quit, I’m going to fire you, because I think you’ve got something more important to do.”

Few people remember this, but in the year after his historic WSOP win, Moneymaker did make runner-up in the World Poker Tour Season 2 Bay 101 Shooting Star Championship Event in San Jose, California for $200,000. He lost to poker pro Phil Gordon heads up.

However, he maintains that his calling, the one his accounting firm boss was alluding to, was always more about being a poker ambassador than a full-time grinder.

I didn’t think of poker as a career really; it was more of a hobby and something I enjoyed on the side.

“I was never a guy that wanted to travel all the time and grind every series all over the place,” he said. “I always wanted to help grow the game more as an ambassador than play all the time. I still love to play and I enjoy the game, but I enjoy playing when I want to, not when I have to.”

Moneymaker’s endorsement deal included a number of personal appearances at poker events on behalf of the PokerStars brand and a series of popular TV commercials that aired countless times as the game boomed and the airwaves filled with poker content. It made the story a legend and the man a star.

That much attention was bound to attract some negativity, and in the ensuing years, Moneymaker’s reputation as a player took a hit, with an increasingly savvy and outspoken market of poker fans and players often painting his big win as a product of luck rather than skill.

“Honestly, I’m the type that could really care less what all these people think,” Moneymaker said. “I’m the first to admit that I was very lucky and very inexperienced. But I dare anybody who has won [a WSOP Main Event] to say they didn’t get lucky. I lasted seven days, so I must have been doing something right. I played for seven days, so it couldn’t have been all luck. I had to know what I was doing at least a little bit. I had confidence in my game. I still do and I’ve never based who I am on what other people think.”

But Moneymaker’s never felt that he’s had to prove himself when it comes to playing poker. He just plays when and where he wants to.

“If I felt like I had to, I would have gone out and grinded the circuit to try to prove it wasn’t a fluke, but I haven’t done that. The very next year I went back to the World Series and only played six events. I’ve never played more than six or seven events a year there. I’ve never gone out on the road and grinded series after series. I pick and choose the events I play based on what my sponsors want me to do and whether they are at really cool places.”

These cool places range from South America to Europe and …

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