Poker's top 5 overnight millionaires
After three players turned $5 into $1 million this month, we look back at some of the most memorable rags-to-riches stories in poker.
The Spin & Go Millionaires
Let's start this list with the inspiration for it. This month in a seven-day period, three players turned $5 into $1 million playing PokerStars Spin & Gos.
In terms of rags-to-riches, this really is the quickest anyone will ever get there. Unlike others in this list, obviously these victories had by far the most gamble and the least skill attributed to them.
Of the three, the first ever winner, 33-year-old handyman 'sss66666' will obviously always be the most famous:
The Millionaire Maker
Obviously most poker players who enter a tournament and go on to win a seven-figured prize pool become millionaires overnight. However, special mention has to go to this unique event from the WSOP.
Unlike the $10,000 Main Event, the Millionaire Maker has a much more modest $1,500 buy-in that so many more grinders can afford.
Usually seven-figure winners are professional players or high rollers, but these events feature so many more regular Joes for whom the money is life-changing.
The inaugural champion Benny Chen being a perfect example. He was a restaurant manager by day and now he has a $1.1 million score to his name.
Viktor Blom
This is a controversial inclusion because as we all know, the man we call 'Isildur' gives away his millions just as quickly as he wins them.
The reason I have included him is because the story of how he made his first high stakes bankroll is remarkable, even if he struggled to keep onto it. He told Bluff Europe magazine that he managed to go from mid-stakes to nosebleeds in less than a month:
“I deposited $2k. This was really my only money. If I lost this I would have to go and do something else. After I got the money and deposited, I went out to a chill place and sat down for an hour and thought how it had to be done, what I had to do, which stakes and so on. I chose multi-tabling NLHU. I just played every regular that gave multi-tabling action. After two to three weeks I smashed every level and now I had a bankroll of $2M.”
Chris Moneymaker
You simply cannot have a list like this without mentioning the man credited with lighting the fuse for the global poker boom, 2003 WSOP Main Event champion Chris Moneymaker.
By now we all now the iconic story of how this amateur player took on the professionals, and won, to become the first champion of the modern era of poker.
What is not as well known is the story of how he found himself in Vegas in the first place. He entered a $33 satellite on PokerStars thinking it was a normal freezeout. When he won his $10,000 WSOP package, he was annoyed he couldn't cash out the prize money, as he had no plans to travel to Vegas.
Had he read the word 'satellite' or managed to convince PokerStars to let him cash out, poker would be a very different place. Thankfully for all of us, he turned that $33 into $2.5 million.
maratik
Without doubt the greatest story of online spin-up felt very much like the 'Moneymaker story' for online poker.
In 2012 Russian player "maratik" made online poker history with an amazing satellite story.
His journey started at a 40 Frequent Player Points (FPPs) satellite on PokerStars and ended with him winning the $5,200 WCOOP Main Event - the online equivalent of the WSOP Main Event - for $1,000,907.26.
In terms of ROI, this has to be the most profitable tournament win in history. The fact that he turned 40 FPPs into a $5,200 WCOOP seat in itself is nothing short of remarkable, so to then turn that into a seven-figure first prize in the biggest and toughest online tournament of the year is the stuff dreams are made of.
He also cemented his place in poker legend for typing the words 'I won't million' in the chatbox when the final table was discussing a chop deal.
Ok guys, over to you, which legendary seven-figure spin-up did I miss from the list? Let me know in the comments.
