To most on the poker scene, it seemed unlikely that Farha would finish second to a neophyte. Like Grey, Farha played the big cash games in Vegas. He was going against a Lebanese cool cat by the name of Sammy Farha. Moneymaker v Farha at the 2003 WSOPĪfter vanquishing the likes of Phil Ivey and Johnny Chan, Moneymaker found himself playing heads-up for the championship. “The pros played into me as if I was afraid.”īut, as the hour passed midnight, Moneymaker had done the seemingly impossible and no longer looked scared. “I was perceived as easy money,” Moneymaker admitted. So much so that Steve “Z” Zolotow, then one of the game’s reigning greats, made public that he considered “online player” to be synonymous with “fish.” Nobody argued the point. Pros, back then, did not respect online poker. The source of entry made his talent suspect. He won his Main Event seat via an $86 buy-in tournament on the burgeoning website PokerStars. One of them seemed likely to win the prestige event, starting chip-counts be damned.Īmong those superstars, there rode one dark horse: an unknown accountant from Nashville, Tennessee, Chris Moneymaker. This is part of a series of content to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Chris Moneymaker’s historic Main Event win – look out for regular columns from Chris and special features all the way through to the 54th Main Event, which is shaping up to be the biggest of all time.Ĭapping the 2003 World Series of Poker Main Event, the final table housed a murderer’s row of Texas hold’em talent.Īmong the remaining nine were Dan Harrington (he literally wrote the book on tournament poker with “Harrington on Hold’em”), Jason Lester (a sharp New York pro, Lester worked his way up via the city’s cut-throat games at the legendary Mayfair Club) and David Grey (a Vegas-based cash player who competed at the highest stakes).
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