13 Nov 11

Top 5 Most Influential Main Event Winners

Following Pius Heinz becoming the new WSOP champion, this week we look at the five most influential main event champions of the modern era.

5. Peter Eastgate

By becoming the main event champion in 2008, Peter Eastgate accomplished a lot of great poker milestones. At the age of 22 he took a long-standing record for the youngest champion from Phil Hellmuth (Only to have it broken again by Joe Cada the following year).

He also became the first European champion of the online era, and the first one since Carlos Mortensen in 2001. Finally he became the first ever champion since the concept of the November Nine was introduced.

Eastgate's victory didn't perhaps create the buzz it should have for Danish, Scandinavian, or European poker, but he became a great ambassador for the game.

Not only did he have a superb temperament, but he also had continued success at the tables, most notably coming runner up in EPT London, before announcing his retirement in 2010 (Which lasted eight months).

4. Greg Raymer

In many ways Greg Raymer was the Buzz Aldrin to Chris Moneymaker's Neil Armstrong, becoming the second online amateur to capture WSOP gold. He may always be partly in the shadow of Moneymaker for this reason, but he still remains one of the great ambassadors for the game and no doubt played a big part in the increasing popularity of online poker.

With a unique nickname, Fossilman, and even more unique trademark sunglasses, Raymer became a brand all of his own. He has cultivated that brand to become one of poker's most prolific defendants, and is playing a huge part in protecting the reputation of the game, particularly with the mainstream media.

Moneymaker may have shown the world that anyone can win the main event, but Raymer proved the success of the online generation was no fluke.

3. Joe Hachem

Joe Hachem was the first post-boom champions from outside the USA to take down the championship, and in doing so demonstrated how powerful a main event champion is to a local poker economy.

If poker was already booming all over the world, it literally exploded in Australia when Hachem took down the main event.

It helps that Australia is a nation that loves winners, and Hachem became a national celebrity. As a direct result, the Crown Poker Championships in Melbourne got re-branded as the Aussie Millions and became one of the biggest tournaments in the world.

There is also now a wealth of Australian poker tours, poker is shown around the clock on TV is Australia, and Hachem remains to this day one of their biggest sporting celebrities.

2. Pius Heinz

It may be a bit premature to say it, but this writer thinks that Pius Heinz taking down the title this week will have the impact on European Poker that perhaps Peter Eastgate's victory should have. Like Eastgate, he is a young talented European, with a great manner about him.

Unlike Eastgate, the conditions are much better for Heinz to become a big star. When Eastgate took down the title he was subject to heavy Danish taxation on his winnings, which was widely reported at the time of his victory as being close to $6.6 million of his $9.1 million.

The fact that Eastgate potentially walked away with less than 5th place prize money was surely incredibly off-putting to the Scandinavian players he represented.

But Heinz is in a much better position, as just two months prior to his victory, Germany passed legislation to make gambling winnings tax exempt.

When you combine this with a talented young world champion, and an already very strong German poker market, it certainly looks like the poker gods are coming together to create a renaissance in German, and European, poker.

1. Chris Moneymaker

If Pius taking down the main event looks like fate to you, then you will not be able to deny the impact of Chris Moneymaker winning the main event on everything we see in the industry today. Everything about his 2003 victory looked like it was destiny in the making.

The fact he was a complete unknown at a table full of pros, the fact his name was 'Moneymaker', the fact he won his seat by accident (He didn't realise he was in a satellite at the time), the fact it cost him just $39, the fact he busted the best player in the world (Phil Ivey) on his way to victory.

But more than anything, it was the fact that the biggest factors in the poker boom came together all at the same time.

Not only was Moneymaker a complete amateur, he was representing an online site before it was the norm (PokerStars), and finally this was the first time that under-the-table hole card cameras were used to cover the WSOP.

All three factors combined to produce the fairytale story that the greatest Hollywood script writers couldn't have penned better. A fairytale that still inspires millions of us to play every day.



by Barry Carter