Famous Poker Legends

There is a man named Chris Moneymaker who managed to turn completely the poker world by winning the 2003 World Series of Poker. And yes, that is his real name. He turned the poker world upside down and on its ear by winning the World Series of Poker in 2003. Chris Moneymaker became a symbol of poker after 2003. This was also the year in which Internet poker became famous and many people won their way to the World Series of Poker events by playing online. That is exactly how Moneymaker did it as well. He won a $40 buy-in satellite event in a leading online poker site, and managed to enter into the poker’s big encirclement. His win isn’t only a symbol of the beginning of the Internet poker but also means that anybody can become a first-class poker player in the comfort of his or her home. Anybody can play poker with the best players from all over the world and
Moneymaker can play poker with the finest of them. He managed to win five days tough event. Chris Moneymaker is not grizzled Las Vegas professional.
In fact, his first poker tournament played in a brick-and-mortar casino was marked by the World Series of Poker. Big-money professionals, past champions, and other players were eliminated over the five-day tournament run. There were two players still standing in the end: Sammy Farha of Houston and Moneymaker. He won the event with the support of his cheering friends with a full house consisting of two 4’s and three 5’s. Sammy Farha was holding a jack and a 10, ending up with a pair of jacks. Moneymaker’s win helped to change the poker world and increased the popularity of the game. He said that he got lucky during the game and he was using his skill of bluffing many times during the tournament, but still he managed to win it. At that time he said that he was playing poker only from three years.
Far from Las Vegas, Moneymaker is a modest 27-year-old accountant from Tennessee who was working in two places in order to support his three-month old daughter and his wife when he won poker’s premier event and the first prize of $2.5 million. Then he took a route from complete anonymity of an Internet player to winner of poker’s most prestigious event. He really left a trace in history of poker. Because of that, he doesn’t have to work two jobs and his daughter’s future education is ensured. Now he is known all over the world. He also donated $25.000 of his winnings to cancer research.
He is one of the reasons more people to start playing online poker games since he was one of them and he managed to win. That gives most of us hope that anybody can do it- as long as you don’t depend only on luck.

Nguyen which is pronounced “win” came from South Vietnam in 1979 on a small boat through South Pacific. He was brought to the USA after he was picked up together with his family by a US naval vessel. Nguyen arrived practically without any money and after a while he settled down in Chicago.
He moved to Las Vegas at the age of 21 and began to work as a poker dealer. Nguyen started to play in his free time for low stakes and entered daily, small tournaments that were very common for Las Vegas. The skills of Nguyen over the next decade improved progressively, he quit dealing and started to play full time poker. His first big break came at 1997 World Series of Poker when he won the Omaha High-Low Split event. He returned the next year and defeated a then-record 350 opponents at the age of 35 and won the poker’s world championship.

The self-described “poker brat” is one of the poker’s most controversial and intriguing players. From time to time he demonstrates something that is very rare even amongst high stakes poker players- a level of ingenuity. Hellmuth is originally from Madison, Wisconsin. He is a university dean son. He started to play seriously poker when he was accepted at the University of Wisconsin and very soon after that he discovered he was more interested in playing poker than in studying. Hellmuth played his first World Series of Poker at the age of 24. He managed to shock the world of poker by becoming the youngest winner in the history of Binion’s annual classic and upsetting the two-time champion Johnny Chan. Hellmuth is well known for terrorizing with devastating hot streaks the poker circuit. In all Hall of Fame events at the Horseshoe in 1991 he finished in the top five. He won two years later an unprecedented three World Series of Poker events. In 1995 Hellmuth won the Hall of Fame championship as well. Amazingly, all of Hellmuth’s big wins have been in Texas Hold’em events having in mind that he usually plays all games. At the moment, Hellmuth lives in the Bay area of San Francisco. He can be seen at most important tournaments and he continues to play high-stakes poker.