Wednesday, March 22, 2006 | 7:11 a.m.
After playing a limited tournament schedule the past couple of years to focus on other business interests, former World Series of Poker champion Chris Moneymaker expects to have a busy 2006.
"I've been devoting so much time to my company, Moneymaker Gaming, that I haven't been able to play as much as I would have liked," he said in an interview with the Sun. "I'm hoping to make up for it this year."
Moneymaker, who earned $2.5 million for winning the 2003 World Series of Poker main event at Binion's, said the centerpiece of his touring schedule will be this year's World Series, scheduled June 25 to Aug. 10 at the Rio.
The World Series consists of 45 individual tournaments capped by the $10,000 buy in main event set to begin July 28.
While he plans to compete in a number of the preliminary tournaments, Moneymaker said two events in particular stand out for him: the championship, known as the "Big One," and the newly announced $50,000 buy in "HORSE," or mixed-games event.
The HORSE contest - it's an imperfect acronym for the games involved, which include no-limit hold 'em, Omaha high-low, razz, 7-card stud and 7-card stud high-low (also known as eight or better, hence the E) - marks the first time a World Series tournament carries an entry fee higher than $10,000. It's a three-day event scheduled to begin July 25.
"There's nothing like the excitement surrounding the championship event at the World Series of Poker - nothing like it in the world," Moneymaker said.
"But I expect there are going be thousands and thousands (of entrants) in the championship event again (after last year's field of 5,619), which will make it a very tough field to negotiate.
"With the mixed-games event, I think you'll see only a few hundred people, and every one of them will be among the best poker players in the world. It'll be exciting and competitive, but in a different way."
The high buy in and specialized forms of poker in the HORSE event figure to attract world-class pros such as Daniel Negreanu, a longtime advocate for a mixed-games tournament in the World Series, and Ted Forrest, a regular in Las Vegas' high-stakes cash games.
"If it's a tournament with all different kinds of games, that would seem to fit in well with my style of play," Forrest said recently.
Like some other top professional players, Moneymaker believes a mixed-games event is probably the purest test of poker skill.
"Competing in all the games at the highest level shows you're a true champion," Moneymaker said.
In all, Moneymaker - who was born in Tennessee in 1976 and still lives in Nashville - expects to play in at least several dozen tournaments this year.
He no longer competes in World Poker Tour events - he's one of a handful of pros protesting the television release form all players are required to sign to appear in the made-for-TV tournaments - but Moneymaker is affiliated with the fledgling North American Poker Tour. That circuit is scheduled to launch later this spring with a big tournament at Hollywood Park in Los Angeles.
"The idea is that only the very best players will be competing in each tournament, because you have to be invited, or be ranked (among the top players in the world), or win your way in through a qualifying tournament," Moneymaker said of the North American Poker Tour.
Perhaps more famously than any poker player in the game, Moneymaker knows about winning his way in through a qualifier.
He put up $39 and won an 18-player online satellite tournament, which he parlayed into the $10,000 entry fee and his eventual world championship in 2003.
At the final table, Moneymaker defeated veteran pro Sammy Farha in a memorable heads-up clash immortalized by ESPN's cameras.
Not long after, he founded Moneymaker Gaming, a poker equipment, apparel and accessory company that has business affiliations with Playboy Enterprises; the Palms and the N9NE group; and NASCAR drivers Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Rusty Wallace and Ryan Newman.
archive
