By now the WSOP story of Chris Moneymaker is well known to every poker player,  and to millions who have never played the game.  Americans love hearing about the underdog triumphing against overwhelming odds,  but even the most shameless Hollywood hack would've paused before coming up with a script like the one that played out in the 2003 World Series of Poker.  An accountant playing in his first live tournament,  up against the best players in the world,  wins the most prestigious title in poker.  And then of course there's that name, so perfect it’s almost too good to be true.

ESPN has repeated its coverage of the 2003 World Series of Poker so many times that poker fans can recount famous hands,  like movie buffs reciting their favorite lines.  Many of those hands featured Chris Moneymaker,  but in his new book,  the extensively titled Moneymaker: How an Amateur Poker Player Turned $40 into $2.5 Million at the World Series of Poker,   we learn that this modern-day folk hero wasn't quite the greenhorn the TV coverage made him out to be.

Although the WSOP was Moneymaker's first live poker tournament,  it wasn't his first time gambling for high stakes.  The early chapters of the book alternate between the first day of the WSOP and an abbreviated biography,  much of which revolves around the young Chris Moneymaker hustling the neighborhood kids at cards and poker.  Kiddie stuff to be sure,  but it started Moneymaker on a path that led him to playing blackjack in local clubs and betting on sports.  And not nickel-and-dime stuff:  During his time at the University of Tennessee Moneymaker and his father built up a $60,000 bankroll,  mostly from sports betting.

Then,  during one drunken afternoon,  Moneymaker blew the entire sixty grand betting on college football.  He lost the first bet,  doubled up on the next,  and when he lost that one didn't stop until he'd lost everything.  This admission  --  and other episodes involving alcohol and gambling  --  are surprisingly candid,  as is his frank assessment of his financial situation before his big win.  He and his wife were deep in debt and living beyond their means,  and the birth of their daughter further complicated matters.

By now Moneymaker had shifted from betting on sports to playing poker online,  and the description of how he won his World Series seat in an online tournament is possibly the most interesting part of the book.  Playing against faceless opponents while sitting in a darkened room,  Moneymaker's stack fluctuated wildly as he played his way to the final table.  As he built a huge chip lead,  Moneymaker's focus wasn't on winning one of the three WSOP seats;  it was capturing the $8,000 prize for finishing fourth,  money that would help pay down some credit card debt.

The book relates how players emailed one another back and forth,  trying to make deals,  trying to conspire with other players to tank certain hands.  Moneymaker ended up making a deal,  but with one of his best friends.  It entailed an offer of $5,000 to buy half of any winnings Chris might win at the World Series if he hung on and won a seat.  Moneymaker agreed,  but unfortunately his financially strapped friend had to go back on his promise,  which,  of course,  turned out to be quite a missed opportunity.

As the tournament starts Moneymaker tries not to play scared and decides to go after players who,  like him,  are wearing shirts and baseball caps sponsored by online poker rooms,  figuring they’re more likely to be neophytes like himself.  An older gentleman sitting to his left is dressed that way,  but the other players seem to give his raises an inordinate amount of respect,  and during a break Moneymaker tries to figure out where’s he’s seen the man’s face before.  He wanders over to the wall hung with the portraits of every World Series champion,  looks them over,  and learns that he’s been playing against 1995 World Champion Dan Harrington.  Hardly the clueless online qualifier.

Of course,  Moneymaker would end up playing against Harrington again,  at the final table,  and the story of how he miraculously wended his way through the field is what poker fans want to read about.  Everyone has heard the ESPN commentary of the tournament,  but it is illuminating to hear Moneymaker describe,  in his typically frank and often self-deprecating manner,  what he was thinking as certain hands played out.  In fact,  the hand that Moneymaker says may have been the key to his winning the tournament was one he wasn’t even involved in.  It was what Moneymaker describes as the “bonehead” play of the tournament:  The hand where he was in the big blind and forgot he hadn’t mucked his cards.  The hand has been played over and over  (to Moneymaker’s dismay),  and as he describes it he was watching Howard Lederer and Johnny Chan stare each other down for several minutes,  wondering what was going on in the minds of these two poker giants,  when Chan finally said,  “You know it’s up to you?”

And only then did Moneymaker realize they were waiting on HIM.  He was so embarrassed that he almost wanted to tank his next hand so he could get knocked out and go hide.  Up to that point he’d been playing for pride,  but that gaffe pretty much ended that hope.  And Moneymaker said that this actually took a lot of pressure off him,  and gave him the courage to mix it up with the best players in the world

Oddly,  the book loses much of its steam the deeper it goes into the tournament.  As the hands take on more and more importance Moneymaker spends less and less time describing what he was thinking and feeling at the time.  Once he progresses far enough that his prize money will pay off all his debt,  he spends little time talking about what the huge sums at stake might mean to him.  Of course we know how it all turns out in the end,  but even so the final few hands seem anticlimactic and rushed.

Moneymaker’s win changed the poker landscape.  In 2004 there were over 2,500 entrants to the World Series,  and this year it’s estimated that more than 6,000 players may take their shot.  Traffic at online poker sites has exploded.  Casinos are expanding their poker rooms to meet the demand and some states are thinking about legalizing this popular  (and tax-generating)  game of skill.  How the win changed Chris Moneymaker is still to be answered.  In the conclusion of the book he talks about the immediate aftermath of his win  (including a trip to a strip club that left Moneymaker wishing he’d brought along more than fifteen grand of the $2.5 million he won)  and of how his life totally changed as ESPN began broadcasting the WSOP nearly round-the-clock.  He became a celebrity so famous he couldn’t walk through an airport without people stopping him for autographs.  He quit his job because he had so many requests for promotional appearances.  He played in more tournaments,  and with some success,  finishing 2nd in a World Poker Tour event and taking 10th in Pot-Limit Omaha at the World Series.