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Chris Moneymaker was a mild-mannered accountant in Tennessee when he spent $40 to enter an Internet poker tournament. Before he was done, he’d won $2.5 million in the 2003 World Series of Poker (the first tourney he’d ever played in a casino) — giving the hundreds of thousands who watched on ESPN something to shoot for.

“I think anyone who comes in this room thinks, yeah, that could be me,” said 40-year-old Fran Lieberman, who sat waiting for a tournament to begin in the poker room at Casino del Sol last month. “Who wouldn’t?”

Even five years after the start of what is commonly referred to as the “poker boom,” the Moneymaker Effect continues to draw new waves of players to poker tables at local casinos, corner bars, living rooms and online.

“It’s probably more popular now than ever,” says Rick Chaurette, poker room director at Casino del Sol since 2003, who sees no end to the increased interest. “We’ve taught a whole new generation about poker, and a percentage of them are locked in for life.”

The game that has sucked in so many is Texas hold’em. With its relatively simple rules and a format that makes it easy to show — and analyze — on TV, hold’em has become part of the national lexicon.
“It’s the American dream,” says Ned Shabou, a 49-year-old Tucson-based graphics designer turned poker pro.

“Anybody can win. You watch golf (on TV) and you know you cannot play against Tiger Woods. But you can play against these pros, so, of course, you think you can beat them as well. You can enter the World Series and win $8 million,” he said.

Moneymaker gained entry into the $10,000 buy-in main event of the 2003 World Series of Poker by winning that initial Internet poker tournament.

While the prospect of fame and fortune might encourage some to try the game, many players say they stick around because poker is fun to learn and to play.

“Poker, fundamentally, is a social game,” said Alex Porter, 24, a University of Arizona student who has played in the World Series of Poker and on the World Poker Tour. “The social aspect is really what drove me into it,” said Porter, who is also a regular at a weekly home game that costs $11 to play.

Written by Brian J. Pedersen
www.azstarnet.com