2003 WSOP Main Event Winner Chris Moneymaker was born in 1975 in Atlanta, Georgia. He grew up in Farragut, Tennessee and later went on to earn a master's degree in accounting at the University of Tennessee. After graduation he found a job as an accountant and got married to his wife Christina. Around this time he watched the movie "Rounders" with some friends and that's when the "poker bug" bit him. He started playing online poker and soon Poker Stars became his favorite place to play. He enjoyed playing in the tournaments with buy-ins ranging from $10-$50. One day in 2003 he decided to sign up for a $39 World Series of Poker satellite. He beat the other 17 players in the satellite and was pretty excited. That won him entry into a genuine WSOP satellite, meaning if he won this one he would win a $10,000 seat at the WSOP.

Chris started off very good in the satellite. He caught an early double-up and his chip stack was growing at a great rate. There were around 60 players playing in this tournament so as players started getting knocked out Chris was getting more optimistic by the minute. A couple hours later and it was over, he had turned $39 into a $10,000 seat at the largest poker tournament in the world.

Chris Moneymaker says that when he arrived at Binion's Horseshoe in Las Vegas he was extremely nervous. His most important goal for the first day was just to survive, which he did very well. The next day he was placed at the televised table with pro poker players Howard Lederer and Johnny Chan. Not only was he on TV, he was going to be playing against two of the top poker players in the world. He soon became the overall chip leader and dominated the table. At the final table he was in a heads up match with another well known player, Sammy Farha. In the end Chris flopped two pair and Sammy had top pair, they pushed all in and Chris made a full house. He had turned $39 into $2,500,000 and is one of the main factors for the big online poker boom of that time. This couldn't have came at a better time for Chris, his wife had a baby three months before his big win.

He quit his accounting job after the WSOP. Since then he has played in quite a few tournaments and had some good finishes. In 2005 he wrote "Moneymaker: How an Amateur Poker Player Turned $40 into $2.5 Million at the World Series of Poker". He also won $200,000 for a 2nd place finish in the WPT Shooting Stars event.

What's He Like?

Chris is pretty quiet at the tables. Off the tables he's a family man that likes to spend a majority of his time at home.

What's he doing now?

Chris has been very busy lately. He is a member of Team Poker Stars and can be regularly found at the tables there. He also plays in 7 or 8 of the big offline tournaments a year and usually does pretty good. He recently launched his own business Moneymaker Gaming, which offers poker chips, tables and collectables. The rest of his time is spent at home with his family.

Major Wins (WSOP)