This summer will mark 15 years since Chris Moneymaker defied the odds to win the World Series of Poker Main Event. After winning his seat in a satellite tournament, and following through, the 27-year-old account from Tennessee almost single-handedly kick started the poker boom which changed the game beyond all recognition Let’s take a look back over the highs and lows since that incredible moment.
How It All Started
As the new year rang in 1998, Planet Poker was about to start something that would transform the lives of card players around the world. Their website was to be the first to offer real money online poker. Little did we know at the time, but this decision was about create a multi-billion-dollar industry, effectively overnight.
Even as we approached the turn of the millennium, poker was still viewed by many as a game played by old men in smoke filled back rooms, with piles of cash on the table. That was all about to change.
The game still had its superstars. Doyle Brunson had been at the top of the scene for decades. Phil Hellmuth held the record as the youngest ever WSOP Main Event champion, and had collected five more bracelets since his victory in 1989. Over the next few years though, this generation was about to get a huge wake up call.
1998 -2003
The birth of online poker coincided with the release of the classic poker movie Rounders. As well as this, we were being treated daily to countless replays of the action from Las Vegas by ESPN, as seemingly normal people competed to try and win the big one. The concept of the hole-card camera was pure genius. Simple but effective. Poker was suddenly being thrust into the limelight.
The online game soon picked up some momentum, and also the numbers were starting to increase noticeably at the World Series of Poker. In the 1990 main event we saw 194 entrants, which inched up to 312 when Stuey Ungar took his final victory in 1997. Five years later that had more than doubled to 631.It was clear that this younger internet generation was starting to arrive on the live scene. And then in 2003 everything was turned on its head.
Against All the Odds
When Chris Moneymaker took his seat for the WSOP Main Event in 2003 he was probably satisfied to just be there. He wasn’t a professional poker player, and he had won a satellite tournament on Pokerstars, for only $39, giving him the right to line up against supposedly the best players in the world. There were 839 players in the field, and the winner’s prize would be $2.5 million. Throughout the 90’s it was only $1 million, so things were improving nicely by now.
Moneymaker played a steady strategy throughout his tournament, which kept him out of trouble for the most part.
“I played my position and when it got checked to me I bet. If it got bet into me I only played when I got good hands. I semi-bluffed a lot, which was not as common back then.”
As the tournament neared its conclusion there were a couple of iconic hands during the heads-up stage against Sam Farha. Feeling on a roll Moneymaker made a risky river all-in bluff with only king high, where Farha eventually pitched his pocket nines into the muck. Then the climax came in epic style when Moneymaker’s 5d 4s rivered a full house to Farha’s two pair with Jh Td.
The impossible had been done. An amateur who didn’t even pay for his seat had just become the de facto world champion of the game. All of a sudden, people around the world were starting to believe that they could emulate the young man.
The Snowball Started
The following year was a shock for everybody involved in the game. By the time registration had ended there were 2,576 players waiting to sit down and pull off a “Moneymaker”. This was more than triple the previous years total, which was enough to offer a $5 million cheque for the winner. There were even too many players to get them all into the room on the starting day, leading to two starting flights.
Greg Raymer was the winner in 2004. Another internet qualifier, although this time with some reputation behind him.
In 2005, the records were smashed once again. This time the venue was changed to the Rio Casino as 5,619 players marched to the much larger playing hall for a crack at winning $7.5 million. The total prize pool was an insane $52,818,610, meaning that every player who made the final table would be going home a millionaire.
By now people were thinking that it couldn’t get any bigger than this, but 2006 left us all stunned. This was the year when Jamie Gold, a TV executive, went home with $12 million after topping a record field of 8,773 players. In a mere seven years the winner’s share had gone from $1 million to $12 million. Not only that, but the online game was booming as well. Partypoker, Full Tilt Poker and Pokerstars were dominating the industry with heavy marketing campaigns and lucrative loyalty schemes, but in the midst of all this glory there was a storm brewing.
Cracking the Whip
At the end of 2006 the US government introduced a piece of legislation – UIGEA 2006 – which while not banning online gambling, prevented US based financial institutions from transferring funds to or from websites involved in such activities.
Immediately, most poker providers began to turn away US based players, including market leader Partypoker. Sensing an opportunity, Pokerstars, Full Tilt Poker, and the Ultimate Bet/ Absolute Poker network decided to keep on servicing these customers, feeling they could get away with it.
This would obviously pay off nicely if it worked, as the US customer base was enormous.
Stars Are Born
With all this legal wrangling going on in the background, as we moved into 2007 the online poker landscape was still looking healthy. In particular, the high-stakes games going on for ridiculous sums of money were garnering a lot of attention. Characters such as Tom “durrrr” Dwan and Viktor ”Isildur1” Blom looked to be treating money with zero respect as they took on all comers in the highest stakes heads-up games they could find. These guys were winning and losing millions like it didn’t matter.
Dwan captured the imagination of the community when he announced the durrrr challenge. He was offering an extra $1.5 million on top of any profit if anybody, except Phil Galfond, could beat him over 50,000 hands of heads up NL or PLO at stakes of $200/$400 or higher.
The story of how this all turned out is well-known, but the point is that this kind of excitement is exactly what was driving the poker scene back then.
The Blackest Day
The cliché “What goes up must come down” was never more apt in the story of poker between the peak of 2006, and April 2011.
In 2007 our worst fears were confirmed when the infamous “superuser” scandal hit the headlines. A lot of players have always had some level of paranoia when it comes to trusting the integrity of poker websites. Was it possible that other players could work out a way to see everybody’s hole cards? On Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet this was proved beyond doubt, and initially threatened to tear down the entire online industry. Former WSOP Main Event champion Russ Hamilton later admitted to defrauding players out of millions of dollars, and still to this day has never attempted to personally put this right.
As bad as all that was, it didn’t come close to how shocked we would be on April 15th 2011.
On what is now known as Black Friday, Pokerstars, Full Tilt Poker, and Ultimate Bet/Absolute Poker were finally cornered by the US authorities over their refusal to play ball with the UIGEA requirements. Pokerstars immediately closed their door and returned any funds to US based players. As for the others, it took 5-6 years before everybody got their money back. The likes of Chris Ferguson and Howard Lederer had been living the highlife on what turned out to be player’s deposits, leaving a massive shortfall in case of people wanting their money back from Full Tilt Poker.
A Bleak Future?
With the US player pool seemingly out of action, the immediate future looked extremely bleak. Not everybody caught on quite so fast though. Players had gotten used to making money during this golden age of poker, and it was going to take some time before they realised that their environment had changed dramatically. Games were now much tougher than they had been. To start with people assumed it was just variance, but slowly the new reality started to set in.
Could poker survive under these conditions?
Nearly seven years later, we now know that it has survived well. The naysayers will preach about the changing of the rakeback deals, and how high-volume winning players are no longer pandered to by the poker providers, but the scene is still here.
When we look at the numbers it is clear that 2006 was a peak that will probably never be seen again. The WSOP Main Event has generally seen high 6,000’s compared to the record 8,773, so it’s not a huge drop off, but the world is a much different place than it was back then.
Beyond 2018
As online poker turned 20, we should note that people will be legally playing now that weren’t even born when it all started. For those of us who saw the changing of the generations a decade ago, we are now about to see it all again. That’s not to say the older players can’t compete any longer, but it’s going to get tougher. Just consider for a moment that Fedor Holz never even played a single hand of poker prior to Black Friday.
It’s a fact of life now that to survive in today’s poker climate you’re going to have to work harder than you’ve ever worked before. For the mortals, anyway. Utilising every tool and resource you can lay your hands on, in the most efficient way possible, is the best way forward.
In this new era, the mental game side has become ever more important, with highly qualified specialists such as Jarod Tendler and Elliot Roe making ground breaking changes into how players might best prepare themselves.
As far as the entire poker scene is concerned, a few factors stand out as crucial in determining what kind of future poker, both live and online, will have.
Firstly, we need to see how well we can reshape the player pool to what it was 10 years ago. Regulation in the US has been painfully slow, even if things are moving in the right direction. The same applies to what we are seeing in Europe.
This esports revolution we are seeing before our eyes is also an important factor. Can we keep enough players in the game to maintain a solid future?
There is one final point which may make all the difference. How can cryptocurrency help poker?
Most of the legal skirmishes surrounding regulation of the online game have been directed at the money aspect. To date, governments don’t look to be taking the crypto scene very seriously at all. At the same time, we are seeing reported a number of sites looking to offer a full crypto service. It is possible, to some degree, that the likes of Bitcoin could allow the entire world player pool to once again reconnect in a way we haven’t seen for a long time.
Only time will tell, but the future for poker is once again looking bright. Of course, as long as you’re prepared to work for it.
