The Mysterious Origins of Poker

While the exact origins of poker are unknown, most believe it evolved from older card games in the early 1800s in North America. Some theories suggest it originated from the Persian game of As Nas, the French game of poque, or the German game of pochen – all games involving bluffing and betting.

One of the earliest documented mentions of poker appeared in 1834, when Jonathan H. Green chronicled the rules for the “cheating game” frequently played by swindlers traveling on Mississippi riverboats. This version involved 20 cards instead of the standard 52-card deck we use today. By the 1850s, poker spread via steamboats to New Orleans and throughout the South.

The Growth of Draw Poker Variations

During the Civil War, poker continued to expand as soldiers from both the North and South played variations like stud and draw poker to pass the time. Five-card draw emerged as one of the most popular versions, and involved drawing new cards to improve one’s hand.

Later in 1875, the Joker was introduced as a wild card, adding a new element of chance and flexibility to poker hands. This paved the way for new variations like Lowball poker where the lowest hand wins. By the turn of the 20th century, community card games like Texas Hold’em entered the scene, utilizing shared cards that all players could use.

Poker’s Rise in Popularity

While poker was popular before, its appeal grew immensely during the 20th century for several reasons. One of the main reasons is that television and media coverage exposed poker to a wider audience.

The 20th century also saw the appearance of different poker organizations that brought high stakes poker games and bracelet events into the public eye. As poker legends like Doyle Brunson, Johnny Moss, and Amarillo Slim became recognized names worldwide, interest in the game skyrocketed. Books teaching poker strategy also proliferated, improving the overall level of play.

The poker boom really took off in the early 2000s with the introduction of online poker. The accessibility and convenience of playing poker online led to an explosion in participation. Chris Moneymaker’s win in the Main Event after qualifying online further fueled the craze.

Poker in the Modern Era

Today, poker remains extremely popular worldwide both online and in casinos. While Texas Hold’em continues to dominate, mixed game variations like Omaha, Razz, and HORSE have also gained traction. The strategies and mathematics behind optimal poker play are constantly evolving thanks to computer simulation and analysis.

Poker has come far from its humble origins on riverboats. While the fundamentals remain the same, its prevalence across casinos and pop culture is a testament to poker’s lasting appeal. As poker continues to grow in the digital era with live-streamed games and mobile apps, it is clear this classic game has a promising future ahead.

A couple days ago, Poker.org released Moneymaker 20 Years Later, a documentary that explores Moneymaker’s win in the WSOP Main Event and how that win changed his life. It is definitely worth a watch for any fan of Moneymaker or those interested in the history of the modern era of poker.

Beer, Sports Betting, Accounting, and Poker

The first thing that stuck out about this documentary was the style. It reminded me a lot of some of the poker documentaries that came out around the start of the Poker Boom. While this isn’t PokerGO-esque level production, if you want an honest look into the life of the WSOP’s most famous champion, this is the interview to watch.

Like many documentaries, this one started with Moneymaker talking about his childhood. The highlight of the opening segment, in this reviewer’s opinion, was Moneymaker speaking about his relationship with his Dad. From there, the documentary switched to Moneymaker’s college years.

We learned about how Moneymaker discovered beer and sports betting. He also talked about how he started a career in accounting despite being “too dumb” to work at some of the top accounting firms. He split his time between work and poker, quite literally, and that eventually led to his run in the WSOP Main Event.

Most of us know the story about Moneymaker’s run as ESPN presented it back in the day, but in this interview, we hear more of his story. We also learn about some of the “creative liberties” that ESPN took in presenting the 2003 WSOP Main Event. This part of the documentary was fun, honest, and gave a fresh look at the Moneymaker run.

What If… Moneymaker Was a Full Tilt Pro

Imagine a world where Chris Moneymaker was an investor in Full Tilt Poker. According to Moneymaker, that almost happened! One of the more revealing sections of the documentary detailed Moneymaker’s contracts with PokerStars.

He started out making $5,000 a month “to do nothing.” After a year, Isai Scheinberg decided to 5x his contract. Scheinberg’s generosity earned Moneymaker’s loyalty, which was soon tested. While Chris was renegotiating his contract with PokerStars, Howard Lederer offered Moneymaker the chance to invest in Full Tilt Poker.

Moneymaker declined the offer, which he initially felt was a -EV play. Ultimately, it proved to be one of his smartest moves. Of course, it does make one wonder what the poker world would have been like if Full Tilt Poker had Moneymaker’s services. Fortunately, we will never have to find out.

The Future With America’s Cardroom

The last few minutes of the documentary gave insight into how Moneymaker signed on with ACR Poker. He spoke about how Black Friday impacted his life, his ability to play on PokerStars, and his future in poker. At one point, he revealed that he was considering retirement from poker. (We all know just about how long poker retirements generally tend to last.)

While some may see this as a backdoor plug for the website, it is still an important part of Moneymaker’s story. Listening to Moneymaker talk, you get the impression that ACR Poker is on a similar trajectory as PokerStars back in 2003. The right amount of time was spent on this topic. It covered his transition to ACR Poker without making the documentary seem like an infomercial.

Moneymaker Documentary: A Fun Look In

Moneymaker 20 Years Later is an entertaining look into the life of poker’s most famous World Champion. The interview helped to paint a complete picture of the man behind the legend.

The best parts of the interview focused on Moneymaker’s mindset while going through the Main Event and the realities of being the first mainstream poker ambassador. Unless you lived through those years as a part of the poker community, it is hard to imagine what the early days of the Poker Boom were like. This documentary helps to paint a clearer picture of that time.

As far as critiques, because poker fans have gotten accustomed to A+ level production from the likes of PokerGO, my principal gripe was with production quality. I felt that there was a bit too much reliance on stock photos and music, plus the background music just seemed unnecessary and could have been eliminated.

With that said, overall this is still a feature worth watching, particularly for any Moneymaker fan or anyone wanting to learn more about the early days of the Poker Boom. You can watch the documentary for free below, courtesy of Poker.Org’s YouTube channel.

At CrushLivePoker, Bart Hanson and company are focused on bringing you the tools to do just that. In their full-length Crushing Live NL Hold’em (2023 and Beyond) course, green and experienced players both are provided the fundamentals of attacking the felt exploitatively and with a foundation of game theory optimal fundamentals. Let’s dive into what this expansive course has to offer.

Crushing Live NL Hold’Em Overview

Make no mistake, this course will keep you busy. Clocking in at over 50 hours of content, this course is split into six modules with nearly 80 lessons in all. Modules available include Basic Concepts, Definitive Guide to Small Stakes Exploits, Winning at the Low Stakes, Continuation Betting, Winning at the High and Upper Mid Stakes, and Intermediate Concepts. While the range of materials targets a wide range of live players, the entire course has merit no matter your experience level. Whether you are a grizzled veteran or not, each module offers over 6.5 hours of content to explore.

No matter the module, this course is built around getting value and making exploits. There are areas that focus on the game theory optimal (GTO) fundamentals, but Crush Live Poker’s NLH course is uniquely focused on using that base of knowledge to identify your opponent’s playing style and extract the most value possible.

The course is split between video and audio presentations. There is a slight lean toward audio, and those lessons typically come equipped with PDFs that summarize the discussion from lesson to lesson. These PDFs are more of a reference than intended for taking in the information initially. I would recommend consuming the content as intended first throughout. As a primarily visual learner, I found the audio lessons to still be helpful and consumable. Anyone familiar with CrushLivePoker’s YouTube content will feel right at home as a listener here.

If you are a live poker player, or are looking to start, I can make it simple upfront: you are going to like this course. Online players will find live exploits that are far different than their typical expectations online. CLP’s course does a great job of bridging that gap and explaining when and why the deviations from GTO play are necessary. There is no doubt that the course provides plenty of value in making the transition to the live realm.

Best of all, Cardplayer Lifestyle can offer you an exclusive discount on purchasing the course, as you’ll get 20% off the price (i.e., a savings of up to $10 off/month or $100 off/year) by registering through any of the links in this review article.

Let’s dive into the individual sections for a deeper look at what is being offered.

Basic Concepts (13 Lessons, 9 hours)

This course wastes no time throwing users right into the action, beginning with basic concepts for beating live poker. Clocking in at just over 9 hours, you can watch this section and feel familiar with old wisdom and adages in the live poker environment.

The Basic Concepts section does focus on common truths, you will need prior experience playing poker in order to absorb the information. Bart and the Crush Live Poker team start with situations that any player will recognize. But the lessons are told through the lens of hand histories and veteran poker lingo that will require some level of  experience to understand.

Instead of teaching you how to play poker, this section focuses on teaching you to play good exploitative poker. Sections on equity, preflop theory, and common leaks in live poker aim to open an experienced player’s eyes to ways the best players are evaluating their opponents and taking advantage of them. This culminates in the Epic Guide to Preflop, a four part audio lesson series that ties everything together through the last three hours or so of this section.

Audio lessons are available in the CrushLivePoker dashboard, accompanied by Lesson Overview documents for review.

Preflop play is so essential in any form of poker, and I love that this course emphasizes its importance. The lessons work to teach solid fundamentals like playing tight and aggressive against early position opens, linear 3-betting against players that never fold, etc. while also finding opportunities to exploit them. Given that preflop is the most solved, scientific street of poker, Bart and company have done an excellent job of breaking down the textbook fundamentals and teaching players to recognize when it is time to color outside the lines.

Lessons include:

• Why So Much (Old School Still True) (22:44 Audio)
• Betting Volume; Why So Much Revisited (41:58 Video)
• Revisited New School Preflop Thoughts (53:17 Audio)
• Common Leaks in Live Poker (50:03 Video)
• 5th Street Chicken Revisited (51:38 Audio)
• Depolarization Revisited (44:38 Audio)
• Why Suited Hands Are Better (35:24 Audio)
• Equity Math (45:56 Audio)
• A Simple Way to Look at the Math of Draws and Implied Odds (34:45 Audio)
• Epic Guide to Preflop Part 1 (48:43 Audio)
• Epic Guide to Preflop Part 2 (38:03 Audio)
• Epic Guide to Preflop Part 3 (36:04 Audio)
• Epic Guide to Preflop Part 4 (38:16 Audio)

Definitive Guide to Small Stakes Exploits (10 Lessons, 6.5 hours)

For many users, I imagine this section of the course will be your bread and butter. Have you ever played low-stakes live cash in a casino, looked around the table and asked, “How am I not up piles right now?” Then this is the section for you. Crush Live Poker’s Guide to Small Stakes Exploits is a crash course in taking the most recognizable low-stakes characters to Value Town.

This is your guide to getting paid by the player that can’t fold the top pair, that is ready to go home, etc. Making bets that are meant to look bluffy, catering to the type of player that just has to see. It’s the foundation that Bart Hanson’s live call-in show is built on, and he proves his expertise all throughout this section.

Some of my favorite exploits include double barrelling vs. weak calling ranges, overfolding later streets to raises, and isolating players for heads up pots. I won’t share all of the exploits here, but this is an area where I feel the course excels. My one nitpick is that I do wish that this section had video elements. Physical live tells come up often at low stakes, and I think it would be beneficial to point out key visual elements during these hands as well.

Lessons include:

• Intro to Small Stakes Exploits Guide (28:44 Audio)
• Exploits 1-3 (39:58 Audio)
• Exploits 4-6 (45:05 Audio)
• Exploits 7-9 (47:20 Audio)
• Exploits 10-12 (44:49 Audio)
• Exploit 13 (56:08 Audio)
• Exploit 14 (21:23 Audio)
• Exploits 15-16 (40:52 Audio)
• Exploits 17-19 (31:13 Audio)
• Exploits 20-22 (43:20 Audio)

WINNING at the Low Stakes (11 Lessons, 11.75 hours)

It’s like the Crush Live Poker team could read my mind. In this section, the course takes a full turn into video analysis.

With nearly 12 hours of video content, the course is dead set on showing you exactly what they meant with their previous exploits section. It’s nice to take a turn to real live stakes action that we can watch and see play out for ourselves. While I would have loved to see more video content spliced into the previous section, it makes sense to have these situations learned through audio first. Learning to recognize the broad situations and mechanics, before you read a specific player, is almost a solver-like approach to learning to exploit in poker.

This section does a wonderful job of demonstrating common low stakes player mindsets. In this example, Bart Hanson examines the dynamics at play when your opponent is check-raising your river bet with far from the nuts

This section’s focus on a play and explain video style will be a welcome sight to many users that need a break from concepts and textbook learning. Watching Bart and others play at low stakes will provide a relatable element that can draw anyone in whose poker mind may have begun to wander. Covering many common spots like loose tables, bet sizing, and 3-bet pots, these situations will be familiar to any avid player watching.

Lessons include:

• Back to Basics in a Small Stakes Cash Game (1:04:53 Video)
• Bart Plays a Loose Live Game Part 1 (1:10:36 Video)
• Bart Plays a Loose Live Game Part 2 (1:04:05 Video)
• Bet Sizing Errors at Low Stakes (1:00:08 Video)
• Run Don’t Walk to Jacksonville (1:09:18 Video)
• Low Stakes Bet Sizing Shotgun (57:01 Video)
• Post Flop Play in 3 Bet Pots (Low Stakes) (56:29 Video)
• Post Flop Play in 3 Bet Pots (Low Stakes) Part 2 (58:24 Video)
• Jacksonville Small Stakes Series Part 1 (1:03:52 Video)
• Jacksonville Small Stakes Series Part 2 (1:08:23 Video)
• Jacksonville Small Stakes Series Part 3 (1:13:55 Video)

Continuation Betting (9 Lessons, 7.5 hours)

Now halfway through the course, things begin to take a turn toward the more advanced concepts. As stated earlier, the preflop street is a bit more scientific. It’s a street that is intricate but able to be mastered given the time and practice. Combine those skills with exploitative adjustments and you can become quite a menace before the flop. But continuation betting adds layers of complexity that the Crush Live Poker team unravels across this 7.5 hour section.

This section is built on a situational foundation that all NL players can recognize: going multiway to the flop as the initial raiser and missing. One of the common things any solid player learns early on is that attacking postflop, even without connecting, is key to earning chips. It’s too hard to make a hand, so you cannot depend on running pure. But here, Hanson lays out what he refers to as his Cbet Bluff Matrix of guiding principles to decide if a c-bet is well-timed. These seven considerations range from the number of players in the pot, their skill level, board textures and more, all of which is broken down in detail across two audio episodes. This is followed up by a video of examples from Hustler Casino Live that shows the thinking in action.

Hanson weighs his options out of position as the preflop raiser with two disconnected overcards, offering his thinking and commentary for course users.]

The later lessons in this section are audio heavy but extremely detailed, covering a variety of flops and situations. I would highly recommend following along with the lesson guides to visualize the situation easily. With that in mind, this section is among the best content in the course. Preflop is the foundation of any good poker play, but building your ability as a postflop player will take you far ahead of your competition in most poker rooms. This course’s dedication to the importance of c-betting is a highlight that should not be missed.

This section gets a bit more advanced. I feel like finding preflop 3bets for value and as bluffs, and c-betting certain flops lay the groundwork for good experienced players. Finding your barrels is a skill that separates good players from great players. Here, the course dives deep on this concept from a variety of angles. This is one of the most impressive sections of the course to this point and I would highly recommend it for any players that feel uncomfortable bluffing on later streets.

Lessons include:

• Cbet Bluff Matrix (50:07 Audio)
• Cbet Bluffing Matrix Revisited (54:59 Audio)
• Bart’s Cbet Cusps Hands (1:02:05 Video)
• Cbetting Ultra Multiway (44:50 Audio)
• Cbetting 3 Bet Pots (27:08 Audio)
• Cbet Structuring in Single Raised Pots Part 1 (39:48 Audio)
• Cbet Structuring in Single Raised Pots Part 2 (51:01 Audio)
• Cbet Structuring in Single Raised Pots Part 3 (1:07:36 Audio)
• Cbetting the Unclear Hands and Finding Your Bluffs (58:34 Video)

WINNING at the High and Upper Stakes (9 Lessons, 8.25 hours)

Now is the time to start reaching for every player’s dreams: playing at the high stakes and raking in massive pots against stiff competition. While the highs may be alluring, it is a different playing field than low stakes players will be used to. This section prepares those that have mastered the low stakes fundamentals for the challenges ahead.

Here is where the course really starts to come full circle. In a poker landscape still caught up in debate over GTO vs Feel Play, CrushLivePoker recognizes that the answer is always situational. Having a solver baseline to default to is key. The best players in the world live and breathe this approach. But even intermediate players at your local cardroom will understand the basics. Having a strong counter to these opponents is essential. What the team does so well here is recognize that you will not be playing that player type consistently. Using solver based play to your advantage and exploiting it is a great way to get ahead of your toughest opponents while still crushing the fish at your tables.

Marc Goone offers solver analysis during his play-by-play recap of a 4-bet pot on Hustler Casino Live.]

With a variety of dense topics like 4-bet pots, changing playing style based on opponents, and firing that huge bluff, the course leans back into video lessons for this entire section. It’s a wise choice, as most users will begin watching as beginner to intermediate players. In earlier sections, audio lessons work because the subject matter is familiar enough to come across clearly in conversation. But here, the team understands that they are training players to go to war in battles they aren’t used to fighting. Getting detailed breakdowns of these situations with play-by-play video analysis is a much appreciated creative direction from this part of the course.

No matter your skill level, I believe any player has a lot to gain from this leg of the course.

Lessons include:

• Why GTO Wins Big Even in Soft Lineups (48:57 Video)
• How to Max Exploit Using a Solver (40:52 Video)
• How to Play 4bet Pots: A Primer (47:42 Video)
• Playing Disrespectfully vs a Fish (43:32 Video)
• Pulling the Trigger on Huge Bluffs (59:19 Video)
• Playing as Mariano on HCL (50:05 Video)
• Ki Shotgun 25-50 NL (1:09:49 Video)
• To GTO or Not GTO (49:59 Video)
• Bart’s 10-20-40 NL Leak Finder (1:27:37 Video)

Intermediate Concepts (8 Lessons, 7 hours)

It’s funny to talk about nearly seven hours of content as the quick outro, but in the final content section, we start to see CrushLivePoker tie up some loose ends.

The Intermediate Concepts section is a mixed bag of tools that need to be in competitive player’s arsenals. That is the closest connecting thread between these concepts, as each lesson examines a distinct area of play from the others. Here you will learn about challenging concepts like overbetting, recognizing scare cards, and compile a full checklist for recognizing opponent types.

Instructor Rob Farha examines key components to a hand that influence his decision to overbet a significant pot

Each lesson is thorough, typically closer to an hour in length. As we near the end of this course, it is hard not to see this as the taste of what is still to come for those hoping to advance their game further. Intermediate Concepts feels like a great sampler platter of poker lessons meant to tease out what may be available in a future advanced level course. These are great introductions to tougher concepts, and I would be interested to see how they expand on these areas should they choose to in the future.

Lessons include:

• Big Blind vs PFR Single Raised Pot (57:11 Video)
• Hand Composition (59:53 Video)
• A Look at Overbetting (56:59 Video)
• What is a Scare Card? (40:54 Audio)
• Pot Odds in Practice (1:08:24 Video)
• Noticing Opponents: A Checklist (16:10 Audio)
• Power of Next to Act (57:33 Video)
• On Continuing (56:15 Video)

Conclusion

Over 50 hours of content later, was it all worth it?

Poker is a complex game, but it does not require players to practice or study. People can freely play at their own risk, gamble it up and win or lose. Ultimately, it is the players who put a lot of time and work into their play that win consistently.

If you are a player that prefers live poker, you likely are familiar with a lot of things discussed here. The typical cast of player types. Bet sizings that should sound alarms. Multiway action on many flops. But if you want to take this game seriously, whether as a hobby or profession, this is a great place to begin to hone your skills. Plus, by clicking through our exclusive discount links anywhere in this article, 20% off will automatically be applied at checkout for a savings of up to $10 off/month or $100 off/year.

As someone that admires the highest level of poker play and has aimed to study like those pros in the past, I really appreciate this course’s focus on getting value at a variety of attainable stakes for the common player. We can all learn a lot trying to play like the best. But your time is almost certainly put to better use learning how to exploit the everyman. Crushing Live No Limit Hold’Em has made this idea its namesake, and this course lives up to the task.

Completing this course felt like a journey from interested hobbyist to fully capable opponent. The content is delivered in a way that players with any level of experience can relate to and learn from quickly. As long as you are looking to play in casinos, or in person with your friends, I think this course is a perfect place for you to start your journey learning the ins and outs of live poker.

In this article we review the 90-minute documentary as well as speak to Above the Felt Founder and CEO Tom Wheaton and the film’s editor Alec Rome, who each shared some interesting behind-the-scenes details about the project.

Review of Dreamers

The documentary features a group of renowned poker players, commentators, and vloggers competing at the 2022 WPT World Championship Main Event in Las Vegas. The tournament attracted 2,960 entries — each of whom bought in for $10,400 — and distributed $29 million in prize money, almost doubling the guaranteed prize pool of $15 million.

The WPT World Championship 2022 / Photo: Joe Giron

Here’s a brief rundown of the documentary’s protagonists:

• Darren Elias: The only player with 4 titles on the World Poker Tour
• Chris Moneymaker: The winner of the 2003 WSOP Main Event
• Maria Konnikova: Author of the book The Biggest Bluff with earnings of $463K on the tournament circuit
• Ethan “Rampage” Yau: YouTube poker vlogger with over 234K subscribers
• Matt Berkey: 2022 Global Poker Award winner with $4.6M in live earnings
• Jamie Kerstetter: Winner of two Global Poker Awards and poker commentator
• Jeff Platt: Broadcaster, streamer and player with $621K in live earnings
• Landon Tice: Player who has won $650K on the live circuit
• Jaman Burton: YouTube poker vlogger with over 47K subscribers
• Tom Wheaton: Founder & CEO of Above The Felt and Faded Spade Playing Cards

Cameras follow the group as they play the tournament and all are interviewed individually. That way we get to know how they started out in poker and that’s one of the things I enjoyed the most while watching Dreamers. To be able to see what attracted them to the game and what factors led them to dedicate their lives to poker is very interesting.

Finally had the chance to sit and watch the @abovethefelt DREAMERS documentary.

So much of this resonated so hard with my own set of beliefs about the poker industry and so many of the amazing people within.

A no-brainer must-watch for anyone in poker.

More importantly, I will…

— Robbie Strazynski (@cardplayerlife) April 18, 2023

Other topics discussed by the protagonists include: how they deal with variance and tournament eliminations, women in poker, what they enjoy most about playing live, content creation and the future of poker.

I’m not going to tell you how the group fared in the WPT World Championship Main Event, as you’ll have to find out on your own by watching the documentary. But, I can tell you that two of them made deep runs in side events and one even managed to find the winner’s circle in a different event.

Time absolutely flew by as I was so caught up in the tournament action and interviews with the members of the group. I couldn’t believe how quickly the 1.5 hours passed! I really enjoyed watching Dreamers and having watched numerous poker documentaries I can confidently say that this one is one of the best I’ve seen.

You can watch it for yourself below, as it’s available for free on YouTube.

Interview with the documentary’s creators

After having watched Dreamers, I was eager to learn more about how it all came together, so I spoke with Tom Wheaton and editor Alec Rome to get more details.

How did the idea of making this documentary come up? 

Tom: “We were originally aiming to produce a couple informal vlogs that highlighted the team’s run in the world championship and how we approach the game and life via interviews. It turned into something much deeper based on the output of the interviews, and the story that developed with two of the members of the group making deep runs in side events.”

Alec: “A few months back, Tom asked me if I had any interest in video editing. I’ve done plenty of video editing starting in high school, but never anything feature length like a documentary. There was all of this interview footage and B-roll from the Wynn Championship in December of all the Above the Felt roster, and particularly the great stories around Jamie Kerstetter and Rampage.

Tom and I both agreed that we could do something big to highlight all of these great people and poker personalities and communicate what we both know about the industry to someone who perhaps doesn’t know anything about poker. There are amazing, smart and personable people in this game who could expand the poker space into new avenues. We both knew we needed to do the story justice and that we could, and thus ‘Dreamers’ was born!”

Did you start to worry when team members began to be eliminated from the tournament or is this something you had a “Plan B” for?

Tom: “Yes, I thought it would turn into content about resilience and how we as poker players have to fight through failure to achieve success. That is still very much a part of the story through the eyes of each player, and how it’s the poker dream that keeps us all so passionate about the game regardless of the vast differences in our journeys. The progression of the poker story from the World Championship to the Ladies Championship to the High Roller was such an exciting content roller coaster.”

Alec: “Really I wasn’t worried about the fact that nobody did well in the World Championship. We knew we had those other stories to use and also, narratively, it helped us to show the struggles and to show how poker can go from smiles to shit in a day or less. The story has no substance if it’s all positive. There must be some challenge, villains, problems. I’m also personally interested in portraying reality as accurately as I can, and that’s the reality that multiple players talked about in the documentary. You barely cash 20 percent of the time in tournaments. Bankrolls can be busted. Cards are brutal. They don’t care about how hard you’ve worked or how long you’ve been doing it… but that’s what’s beautiful and that’s why we keep playing.”

Who is the target audience for your poker documentary?

Tom: “We made an intentional effort to make it interesting for those outside of the industry or who were passionate about poker during the boom era compared to today. The response from those outside of our community has been phenomenal, although I think there are things we could have done differently to make it resonate even more with an outside of poker audience. In our industry, the audience is anyone who is chasing their own version of the poker dream whether recreational, professional or otherwise.”

Alec: “Ideally we wanted both poker professionals and those who are avid poker fans/members of the industry to love this documentary and feel that it represented the best of who we are. But when I was editing this, I really had the novice or the outsider who barely knows how to play poker in mind at all times. How best can we keep an outsider interested? How do we introduce the roster to people who didn’t know their names before? How do we get them invested in the story and intrigued to keep watching? We knew that the avid poker community member was more likely to stick around, and we still wanted to serve them in telling this story, but this was about bringing new players into the game and outside eyes on an industry that may not have been watching before.”

I can’t believe we have ~40,000 views & so many positive responses to “Dreamers: A New-Age Poker Documentary” in just 72 hours.

Thank you for showing up #poker family . Our @AboveTheFelt YouTube didn’t have content two weeks ago. LFG momentum!

https://t.co/PmtNLTpSLa https://t.co/zZEydflMCa pic.twitter.com/eTevFYWncR

— Tom Wheaton (@TomWheaton_) April 18, 2023

The Moneymaker Tour

After such a long time in the game, Chris Moneymaker’s poker legend is such that merch with his name on it typically sells out and every tournament he plays has an atmosphere that is impossible to replicate. The Poker Hall of Famer is a unique player and poker personality and it’s for that reason among others that he commands such a dedicated fanbase. The average poker player still aspires to replicate Moneymaker’s achievements and standing in the game.

The Moneymaker Tour, then, seems the simplest and most effective idea since someone clever decided that the humble loaf of bread would be improved by slicing it. The inaugural stop of the all-new Moneymaker Tour will take place at Florida’s Palm Beach Kennel Club between May 10-24. With $1 million guaranteed across tournaments, excitement is already at fever pitch for fans of the man himself and aspiring poker stars of the future – a large percentage of the poker world.

With the Moneymaker Tour lasting 14 days, a fortnight of fun will see buy-ins ranging from $86 – that original satellite buy-in amount for Moneymaker way back in 2003 before ‘The Moneymaker Effect’ was even a thing — to $2,500 for the high rollers who want to play in the Main Event.

The Moneymaker Poker Tour is coming to Florida… and you can win a seat for FREE!

Kennel Club “Excited” to Host Inaugural Event

“We’ve put together a very exciting poker tour that will appeal to every type of tournament player.”

The Palm Beach Kennel Club cannot wait to welcome players to its popular poker room as it plays its own part of poker history by playing host to the first-ever Moneymaker Tour event.

“We are very excited to be hosting the inaugural Moneymaker Tour to the Poker Room at PBKC,” said Palm Beach Kennel  Club Poker Room Director & Assistant General Manager, Noah Carbone. “It’s going to be an amazing event featuring our largest buy-in event ever as well as a full line-up of great tournaments. This event will bring people to us from all over the country who haven’t experienced this facility before, and many are first-time visitors to beautiful Palm Beach County.”

Calling Florida the ‘epicenter for exciting and competitive poker ‘, Carbone believes that the Poker Room at PBKC is a perfect fit for the Moneymaker Tour.

“Collectively, we have put together a very exciting poker tour that will appeal to every type of tournament player,” Moneymaker Executive Manager Tony Burns said. “We are very excited that many amazing poker players will now include Palm Beach Kennel Club on their schedule for tournament stops.”

We are excited to be the first stop on the Moneymaker Tour, May 10-24, 2023! Tournaments for Everyone! Over $1 Million in Guarantees! 20 Trophy Events! Buys in from $86 to $2500! $500k Main Event! @PokerNews @PokerAtlas @MoneymakerTour pic.twitter.com/XyNzg51ZSk

— PBKC Poker Room (@PBKCPokerRoom) April 6, 2023

With Burns and Moneymaker creating the tour together, there is a familiar feel around the 2003 world champion’s project. The Americas Cardroom [ACR] Team Pro will be hoping that The Moneymaker Tour Main Event, which has the $2,500 entry fee, fills up like that famous WSOP Main Event 20 years ago. It alone has a $500,000 guaranteed prize pool and is scheduled to begin on Thursday, May 18th and conclude six days later on Wednesday, May 24th. With three starting flights on May 18-20, the live-streamed final table takes place on May 24th at 12pm noon local time.

Win One of Four Entries into the Moneymaker Tour

The series’ Main Event certainly isn’t the only tournament worth travelling out to Florida for. In fact, the very first event, The Moneymaker Opening Event costs just $500 to play and has an incredible $250,000 guaranteed prize pool. Running from Wednesday, May 10th until Saturday, May 13th, there are six starting flights to take part in order to battle your way towards the money places and beyond.

To celebrate the grand kickoff, the Moneymaker Tour team are giving four lucky players the chance to win a $500 entry to the opening event with that amazing $250,000 guarantee at the Palm Beach Kennel Club in Florida. All you have to do to put your name in the hat is sign up via the Moneymaker Poker Tour website and you could be lifting this trophy, as Chris Moneymaker and Tony Burns recently shared.

We aren’t kidding around with these trophies! 20 of them will be awarded @PBKennelClub @PBKCPokerRoom on May 10th thru 24th during the Inaugural @MoneymakerTour stop! Visit https://t.co/A2urM3gCAV for more details! pic.twitter.com/lS4yMy8UlR

— Tony Burns (@MMTonyB) April 1, 2023

Time is running out, as you must enter between April 10-30, but it couldn’t be simpler to do; just click on ‘FREE SEAT GIVEAWAY: PALM BEACH KENNEL CLUB’ at the top of the page.

The four winners will be chosen on May 1st and notified by direct message on social media or email.

Want to become the next Moneymaker and emulate a poker hero by winning big money in the process? We’re checking hotel deals in the area already!

These days, it’s far easier to learn how to play poker, Texas Hold’em in particular, at sites online like casinotipspro and other places around the internet. The fact is that far more knowledge is readily available in the modern world at people’s fingertips versus back in the old days when you had to find a poker book or have someone teach you the game.

In 1967, a group of Texas card players, including Crandell Addington, Doyle Brunson, and Amarillo Slim, were visiting in Las Vegas and enjoyed the game. Compared to draw poker, in which betting occurred twice during a hand, in Hold’em you bet four times. And strategy played a bigger role in Hold ‘em. This they liked.

The World Series of Poker

Poker pro Tom Moore established a “Gambling Fraternity Convention” in Las Vegas in the late 1960s. Originally, a San Antonio, Texas businessman, Moore was part owner of the Holiday Hotel and Casino in Reno. At the group’s second convention in 1969, a tournament was held with Hold’em as one of the games played. The following year, Benny and Jack Binion purchased the rights to the convention and renamed the tournament the World Series of Poker (WSOP), with no-limit Hold’em as the main event. The WSOP started with only a handful of players, but by 1982 there were over 100 entrants. The WSOP has obviously continued to grow from there.

Hold ‘Em in Books, TV and Movies

As the WSOP grew, featuring Hold’em as the main event, a number of poker books became available for players looking to learn more about the game. Doyle Brunson’s Super/System was published in 1978. In 1983, Al Alvarez’ The Biggest Game in Town focused on the WSOP and stimulated the publication of other poker books and widely read magazines, introducing Hold’em to a growing audience.

READ MORE: Five Books to Help You Learn TheHistory of Poker

U.S. interest in Texas Hold’ em beyond Texas and Nevada also began to grow in the 1980s. California card rooms offered draw games, but Hold ’em was prohibited under a statute that made illegal the poker game of “stud-horse” (no longer being played). In 1988, Hold ’em was declared legally distinct from stud-horse in Tibbetts vs. Van de Kamp. This decision regarded Hold ’em as a game of skill. Almost immediately, card rooms across the state began to offer Texas Hold ’em.

After a visit to Las Vegas, bookmakers Terry Rogers and Liam Flood introduced Texas Hold ‘em to European card players in the early 1980s. This nicely completed the cycle that started centuries earlier when poker was first introduced into the U.S. by European colonists.

A number of movies were produced prominently featuring Texas Hold ‘em, starting in 1998 with Rounders, starring Edward Norton and Matt Damon. Several other poker movies followed.

Hold’em tournaments were televised starting in the late 1970s, but became really popular starting in 1999 when hidden lipstick cameras were introduced to show players’ hole cards on the Late Night Poker TV show, and in 2003 when the World Poker Tour introduced lipstick cameras.

Chris Moneymaker and Greg “Fossilman” Raymer

Also in 2003, the WSOP experienced the unexpected victory of Chris Moneymaker, a recreational player who earned his buy-in to the tournament by winning an online tournament. This win by a non-professional player resulted in an outpouring of interest in the game of Hold ’em – and in online poker. Imagine, even a rank novice could become a world champion! And then, a year later, adding to the excitement, Greg “Fossilman” Raymer, another recreational player, took the 2004 WSOP Main Event.

Today, millions enjoy Texas Hold’em, and its future looks bright.

His victory sent the world of poker into a frenzy and triggered a global boom which has often been referred to as the “Moneymaker effect”. Many of my current and past peers started their journey during these years and the poker industry has gone through several stages of marketing efforts, ambitious projects, development, setbacks and regulations.

Although the current streak of record numbers in flagship tournaments all over the world feels like an reiteration of the initial poker boom, there are several circumstances that ought to be considered in the grand scheme of things. Even now in 2023, the poker industry remains a niche market with limited visibility across the mainstream media and tarnished by the negative effects of its gambling reputation.

This Era’s New Major Power Player: GGPoker

From my personal point of view, poker’s being a niche market hasn’t really changed in more than a decade. Rather, there were just temporary flashes of engagement with mainstream celebrities initiated by the likes of PokerStars, partypoker, Full Tilt and the latest challenger for the industry spotlight, GGPoker. With the latter, a new contender has somewhat revolutionized the online poker scene and made it by far more competitive while they also made strides on the live poker circuit with numerous partnerships.

Standing out the most is perhaps GGPoker’s close-knit cooperation with the WSOP over the last few years, replacing prior long-term partner 888poker at the helm of dedicated satellites. They have launched countless innovations and have essentially set the pace out of the blue, becoming the first brand to not only get close to, but then even overtake PokerStars in terms of online poker traffic and perhaps even global exposure.

Even the Triton Poker High Roller series has teamed up with GGPoker as title sponsor in 2023 and the high-stakes brand also welcomed Shamballa Jewels and SecretLab as further event sponsors. It isn’t the first time Shamballa has entered the fray in poker as they previously cooperated with the World Poker Tour (WPT). SecretLab is a company based in Singapore that specializes in gaming chairs, catering to yet another niche market that has become a rapidly growing global industry.

World Poker Tour Still Going Strong After 20 Years

On paper, the WPT is perhaps a prime example of a major poker entity to embrace main stream partnerships outside of the enclosed poker bubble. They have recently celebrated their 20th anniversary and during that spell, the WPT engaged with several global enterprises to expand their horizon. Standing out the most from that list are perhaps the luxury jewelry brands Hublot and Baccarat, but they also have ties within the poker industry to companies such as Zynga Poker and Faded Spade.

The recent success of the global online and live poker operator culminated in stunning numbers during the WPT World Championship in December 2022 at the Wynn Las Vegas. It’s flagship $10,400 Main Event came with the largest guarantee in history ($15 million) which was nearly doubled thanks to an incredible 2,960 entrants, creating the largest live poker event for the brand to bring on the fireworks.

Moreover, the WPT have moved their major final tables to Sin City as well with the showdowns taking place at the HyperX Esports Arena in Las Vegas since 2019. As part of the move, the broadcasts were recorded for the FOX Sports Networks, which was later followed by Bally Sports. WPT’s poker content was also distributed to the South American market via TV Azteca, which furthermore promoted the social poker gaming site WPTGO as part of the partnership.

Poker on TV… and PokerGO

Poker on TV was not necessarily an extraordinary occasion since the initial poker boom 20 years ago, especially as the WSOP gathered the most attention thanks to its shows on ESPN.  However, that cooperation concluded in 2021 when CBS Sports took over thanks to a new multi-year rights agreement.

Streaming platform PokerGO also joined the fray and took over many final tables during the annual summer camp in Las Vegas, which likely reduced the overall exposure of the card game to a wider audience in mainstream media channels. While poker enthusiasts wouldn’t worry about forking out a few dollars per month to watch new and exciting content because the card game has become their passion, the very same cannot be said about casual viewers who would otherwise have stumbled over a broadcast by chance.

Where Does the Poker Industry Go From Here?

Poker remains tightly connected to a gambling image that hasn’t been distinguished enough to the public despite numerous portals showcasing the multi-faceted aspects in regards to strategy, psychology, and risk-versus reward scheme. Poker operators themselves have launched their own schools to complement the available pool of poker training sites and learning communities.

They have also spent fortunes on advertising through various different verticals in the hopes of attracting new customers. One such method included the signing of well-known international figures such as sports or music stars, and even established marketing agencies to boost their exposure. In the grand scheme of things, that may very well have been a successful strategy in the past, much like sports bettors rely on NBA expert picks to make informed wagers. Then again, times are changing with social media influencers on Instagram and TikTok becoming a perhaps more considerate choice among the younger generation.

It still feels as if poker hasn’t been able to break out of its self-inflicted bubble and the most attention gathered in mainstream media is typically triggered by a select few moments or viral cheating scandals. The card game may have broken out of smoke-filled back rooms only to gather in the corner section of a casino instead. Even so, poker still has so many lessons to teach that can be used in all areas of life; alas, these things barely ever get any attention whatsoever.

As far as Chris Moneymaker himself is concerned, his name will forever be etched into the history books of the poker world. Now enshrined in the Poker Hall of Fame for his contributions to the industry, he represented PokerStars for more than a decade before eventually switching to become an ambassador for another operator. His latest venture is (re)launching the Moneymaker Tour at live poker stops across the USA.

Bernard Lee is always Chris Moneymaker’s online poker good luck charm

2003 WSOP Main Event champ talks about his new poker room, Moneymaker’s Social Club in Paducah, Kentucky

NOTE: PLEASE SUBSCRIBE To Bernard’s YouTube page AND LIKE any videos that you enjoy

Chris Moneymaker

In this episode of The Bernard Lee Poker Show on the Cardplayer Lifestyle Podcast Family, Bernard Lee interviews 2003 WSOP Main Event champion Chris Moneymaker, discussing the opening of his own poker room in Kentucky.

At the start of the interview, Chris discusses his 2022 WSOP and getting COVID. Chris talks about how players react to him when they play with him during the WSOP main event. Bernard and Chris discuss how lucky Bernard is when Chris plays online with him. Chris gives his view of the WSOP move to the Las Vegas strip and Bally’s/Paris. Chris talks about how people think he “looks” like Chris Moneymaker.

During the second part of the interview, Chris talks about about his new poker room, Moneymaker’s Social Club, located in Paducah, Kentucky.

Many interesting characters play in the poker world, and many of them are considered the best poker players ever on one metric or another. From the early days of professional poker, we have Stu Ungar, Sailor Roberts, Johnny Moss, and Amarillo Slim. For many fans, these players represent what a poker professional should be. Later, during the Moneymaker boom, players like Daniel Negreanu, Phil Ivey, and Tom Dwan were regarded as some of the best poker players of all time. Today, players like Fedor Holz, Stephen Chidwick, and Jason Koon stand out as some of the best poker players in the modern, GTO-heavy game.

While each era has its standout stars, many people ask a surprisingly hard question: who is the best poker player of all time?

This is such a hard question to answer because of the varying metrics by which we evaluate poker players. If you were comparing two NFL Quarterbacks, you could look at overall wins and losses, completion percentage, interceptions, touchdowns, yards, etc. While these are not foolproof, as football is very much a team sport, over long enough careers you can at least compare two quarterbacks and make an argument about which is the more successful.

Comparing poker players is not nearly as simple. How do we compare a cash game player to an MTT player? What about a player who favors big bet games vs. another who favors limit games? Or a player who ground out $10 million in earnings playing $10k and smaller tournaments vs. another who won two super high rollers for the same amount?

You can see the problem that exists when comparing poker players. Despite the difficulties, some metrics can be used to compare players and identify the best poker players of all time.

Five Different Ways to Identify the Best Poker Players of All Time

1. Career Earnings

One of the favorite methods for identifying the best poker players is by examining Hendon Mob profiles. The Hendon Mob tracks players’ live tournament earnings. All WSOP, WPT, and other major tournaments are tracked here, as well as many other live casino tournaments that report to Hendon Mob. The Hendon Mob can help determine a player’s success at live tournaments. There are other databases that report online players’ earnings as well.

How can we use career earnings to identify the best poker players?

This metric shouldn’t just be used to see how much money a player has earned. For example, someone could have been a winning tournament player for a decade in their 20s but hasn’t had any significant winnings in their 30s or 40s, despite still being in the tournament scene. Or, someone could have played only five years of high rollers, crushed them all for $10million+, then retired to do something else. Someone could play 10,000 online tournaments each year and have the same results as someone who plays 200 live tournaments. It’s not always easy to judge who has the best record using tournament earnings. But if you find players consistently winning over many years and in many games, it is safe to say they are great poker players.

2. Cash Game Prowess

Cash game poker players are much harder to rank than tournament players due to the anonymity involved. Cash games are not usually televised, although we have seen an increase in streamed and televised cash games over the last five years. In general, the biggest poker games being played are not streamed, they are in rooms such as Bobby’s Room in Vegas and similar rooms in L.A. Since a lot of the results from these nosebleed games are not public information, it may be hard to use cash game prowess as a metric, but it is not impossible.

How can we use cash games to identify the best poker players?

We can look at the types of games candidates are playing. If the player hasn’t played higher than $10/$20 or $10/$25 no limit, they probably aren’t the best. While many players at these stakes are tough opponents, there are bigger games available. Players who have remained in the nosebleed games for a long time are going to be great. Here we are specifying the players who are straight-up poker pros, not the recreational businessmen and women who play nosebleeds, but the guys like Eli Elezra who have been crushing games in Legend’s Room (Bobby’s Room) for decades. If a player has been playing in the biggest cash games for a long time, they are likely a very strong player.

WATCH: Interview with Poker Hall of Famer Eli Elezra

3. Career Length

Career length is a fairly straightforward metric. How long has the player been winning at poker? This is important because plenty of one-time crushers will fizzle out as the game surpasses their skill set. Finding players who have been winning in the biggest cash games or shipping tournaments for a long time is key to identifying the best poker players. As with any metric, career length has its limitations.

Fedor Holz is regarded by many as one of the best No Limit Hold’em tournament players. Fedor had an amazing run in the high roller scene during the mid-2010s. He won seemingly every big tournament that decade and quickly amassed millions in earnings, including over $16million in 2016 alone. Fedor was absolutely crushing the high roller scene for a few years and then “retired” from being a poker pro. Today, he still plays tournaments, but fewer than he was seven years ago.

While Fedor may not have the longest professional poker career, it was by choice, not because he couldn’t win anymore. For the most part, players need a long-term winning career to be in the “best poker player” conversation. But we shouldn’t automatically exclude someone if they choose to have a short career.

READ MORE: An in-depth interview with Fedor Holz

4. Accolades and Trophies

There are many accolades and trophies awarded in poker. There are WSOP bracelets and Circuit rings, the PokerGO Cup, the Global Poker Index Award, WPT Championship, and many others. While most of these are awarded for specific tournament results, others are not. These accolades can be used to identify some of the best poker players.

Which accolades and trophies should we consider?

There are a few standout accolades that can help identify the best poker players. However, note that many of these skew toward modern players, as they have only existed for a limited time.

GPI Player’s Choice for Toughest Opponent

This GPI award is decided by other poker professionals. It is poker’s version of the NFL Top 100, as it is chosen by the players this person has competed against. Unlike the NFL, however, this award goes to just one individual each year. This is a very high accolade, as the professional poker community picks their toughest opponent – something every poker player wants to be.

WSOP $50k Poker Players Championship

Every poker professional has circled this prestigious tournament on their calendar. The $50k Poker Players Championship is regarded among the professional community as one of the highest tournament achievements possible. It features nine games, H.O.R.S.E, 2-7 Triple Draw, No-Limit Hold’em, Pot Limit Omaha, and No Limit 2-7 Single Draw. It is regarded as the best test of overall poker ability, containing a variety of mixed limit games and big bet no/pot-limit games. Winning this tournament is certainly a plus for a player to be considered as the best of all time.

PokerGO Cup

The PokerGO Tour, a more recent series, features many high roller tournaments in which players can earn points (and money). The tour is a set of standard tournaments, but at the end of the series, the player with the most points earns the PokerGO Cup. To win this trophy, players need to consistently win in some of the toughest fields in poker. Many of the high rollers are playing this series, so to have continued success, a player needs to be an absolute crusher.

While these awards are skewed towards current and recent players, coupling these accolades with other metrics previously mentioned can help identify the greatest poker players of all time.

5. Stories from Professionals

As the previous metric favored today’s players, this metric is for those who can’t win a GPI award or may not have been around to crush poker before result reporting became so popular

For more legendary players, we need to rely on stories from other professionals. I’m sure every poker player has heard tales of the great Stu Ungar, who reportedly won the 1980 WSOP Main Event having never played a No-Limit Holdem tournament. Doyle Brunson famously remarked that it was the first time he saw a player actively get better at the game during a tournament. Many other stories about players like Ungar, Brunson, and Slim showcase their ability to crush poker games over many years.

While stories from the past may not seem to hold up to the other metrics listed, I think they do. Results and accolades can only tell so much of the picture. Relying on poker professionals to tell us who are the toughest and best opponents is a great way to identify the best poker players of all time.

When you are comparing individuals to find the best poker players of all time, it is important to consider multiple metrics. The best poker players will be winning both tournaments and cash games over a long period, and usually across many different game types. They will be regarded as the best by other top professionals and have accolades to back that up. Simply looking at the all-time money list is not enough identify the best player of all time. As in other professional sports, it is hard to compare someone from today’s game to the 1980s, as poker theory has evolved so much. Many people find it easier to list a top five players than an overall best player ever.

Everyone’s top five will be slightly different depending on what they value in a poker player. GTO players will have a top five consisting of players playing close to perfect GTO, while exploitative players may favor more old-school players. Tournament players and cash game players may have very different opinions on guys like Phil Helmuth and Daniel Negreanu. If you love PLO, like me, you may have Phil Galfond in your top five, while NLH players wouldn’t even consider him. Mixed game players may place Eli Elezra in their top five. There so many skills and specializations in poker that it is hard to select a consistent top five players of all time.

Regardless of your priorities for an all-time great poker player, using as many metrics as possible is paramount. While we will likely never see an undisputed best poker player ever, we can at least formulate a list of top five to ten players based on the metrics identified above.

Lena Evans discusses how Poker League of Nations (PLON) was founded & what the group does for women

Lena Evans discusses her poker career, TEDx talk and Class Action lawsuit versus Paypal

NOTE: PLEASE SUBSCRIBE To Bernard’s YouTube page AND LIKE any videos that you enjoy

Lena Evans

In this episode of The Bernard Lee Poker Show on the Cardplayer Lifestyle Podcast Family, Bernard Lee kicks off his celebration of Women’s History Month during March 2022 by interviewing Poker League of Nations (PLON) founder, Lena Evans. The month-long celebration is sponsored by PLON.

At the start of the interview, Lena discusses the Poker League of Nations (PLON) and how the organization helps women participate in poker. Bernard discusses how the idea of the month-long celebration of Women’s History Month came about.

During the second part of the interview, Lena talks about her poker career, including her two WSOP Circuit rings. Lena also discusses her Class Action lawsuit versus Paypal, which previously involved Chris Moneymaker. Finally, Lena talks about her recent TEDx talk and her resulting book.