Moneymaker isn't his real name?? I never heard that before, and his wikipedia entry doesn't mention it. It says his ancestors translated their German name to that when they came to the US.

https://www.pokernews.com/news/2021/...ears-38902.htm

maybe he fell for the april fools

I would argue what you call "the Raymer effect" (a phrase no one has ever used before) was basically caused by this:

1) Me, a casual, watches Moneymaker win in 2003
2) Me, a casual, starts playing poker because if that redneck hick can do it I can too
3) Me, a casual starts doing ok and telling my friends all year how fun poker is and how I'm winning money
4) My friends, all casuals, get intrigued
5) We, all casuals, watch 2004 WSOP. The Raymer-Matusow feud is entertaining as hell and comes to an incredible conclusion with brutal raw emotion with the "bad guy" losing. Raymer's at least has something memorable with his goofy glasses. The final comes down to a sort of everyman in Raymer, a POC in Williams and a cool pro in Arieh - something for everyone
6) We, all casuals, really pick up poker seriously, tell all our friends, and it just multiplies from there

2004 WSOP was a great log to put on a fire that was just starting to really burn. Had 2004 been some random schmo winning, it wouldn't have been as cool, but I don't think it would have really hindered the growth of poker that much.

I'm the one with the statistics, which, of course, were our book sales. When the WPT started we saw a massive jump in our book sales. When Moneymaker won we saw no increase in what the WPT had done but sales did continue along which was quite good for us. Then when Raymer won, we saw another jump but one not as large as the original WPT shows did. Then in Dec, 2004 we came out with the first Harrington book and in June 2005 we came out with Volume II, and 2005 was a huge year for us.

We also saw tremendous growth on this website during that time.

You can draw your own conclusions.

Mason

As an "everyman," Greg Raymer is an interesting figure. The people watching ESPN would take him to be an amateur, a patent lawyer turning to poker, but I had known him for years through the Usenet newsgroup rec.gambling.poker, and knew him to be someone who took poker very seriously and put a lot of work into his game. He had been positioning himself to win for years.

(I didn't have a piece of him the year that he won, but a number of friends of mine did, and they were very happy about it, both as a sweat during the tournament and with the final result.)

Wouldn't it be interesting if the entire Boom was due to the glasses?!?

Hate to hit someone who's forgotten more about stats than I will ever know with this, but I think you're confusing correlation (Raymer winning while poker was booming) with causation (poker booming because Raymer won).

Raymer just posted on the NYC area poker thread...he should weigh in here about how influential he considers himself to have been. How many books did he sell for Mason? Tell us, Greg

(Kidding aside, I intuitively side with Punker on the debate that's unfolded here, but I'd like to see other 2003-2004 poker-related stats besides 2+2 book sales from the period. Online poker site traffic and whatever else we could find)

Yeah, I feel the same way. There's a reason why Moneymaker, Raymer, Hachem, Gold are all fairly household names in poker to people from that era, despite not being top players or being overly charismatic. Guys like Robert Varkonyi, Carlos Mortenson, Chris Ferguson, Noel Furlong the previous 4 winners are far less known for their wins, and it's not because people dislike them, it's because far less people have even seen the tournament. It's simply because their wins weren't beamed to every TV nonstop for months by ESPN like the winners from 2003 onward.

All of these narratives about how Moneymaker and Raymer were leading causes for the boom miss the reason badly. They were just in the right place at the right time and are replaceable by almost anyone who was lucky enough to win and had imo very minimal impact. Just from the 4 previous winners before Moneymaker, 2 were amateurs, 2 were pros, one satellited in. There wasn't a whole lot new or different other than it was heavily televised with hole card cams. Do people really think that if Moneymaker or Raymer won in 2000 the boom would start then? You probably would barely know who they were if at all, because the tournament wasn't shown on TV.

The causation was the original WPT shows. That should be clear from my posts.

Mason

I think it is hard for posters to understand the complete lack of poker information available before 2p2

If you didn’t play then it’s almost impossible for you to appreciate the difference between now and then

Moneymaker winning the main event is as odd as a guy named Lightfoot winning a foot race. Obviously we live in a simulation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricky_Lightfoot

And Jamie Gold made gold at the ME. After Hachem snatched it.

Some useful data besides book sales.

I agree that me winning had no real impact on the popularity of poker, as opposed to almost anybody else who might have won in 2004 instead. If David beats me heads-up, I think poker booms at almost exactly the same level. Same for all the rest who made that final table.

However, I think that if Sam Farha or someone else wins the 2003 Main Event, rather than Chris, that would make a difference. We would still see a big boom after that event is televised. But I think Chris, and his special last name, made the boom at least 10% higher, and maybe even 20% higher.

Now if only my birth name had been Greg Pokerwinner. That would have been something.

Nice find, even one year more back would have been very interesting, but not available...

It's obviously Henry Orenstein. The huge productions of the WPT and ESPN WSOP don't happen without the hole card camera. And Chris Moneymaker could have finished 2nd or 839th and it doesn't change the boom.

WSOP Main Event:

1995: 273
1996: 295
1997: 312
1998: 350
Rounders
1999: 393
2000: 512
2001: 613
2002: 631
Hole Card Cam
2003: 839
2004: 2.576
2005: 5,619
2006: 8,773

I think it was those glasses that created the Poker Boom, Greg!

This was made by the most important person in poker:

That's like saying Bill James is the most important person in the history of baseball because of the lack of in-game activity stat analysis before sabermetrics.

Thanks for inputting your thoughts. I agree, because (and I can't stress it enough: it's ESPN and the hole card cam.

ESPN for airing it nonstop from 2003-2010, and obv nobody wants to watch poker without knowing the cards. Hell, even as a semi professional player I find it hard to really stay interested when watching older broadcasts. It's not even close.

I was 13 when Rounders came out and my buddies dad got us into playing 7 card/5 card stud at basketball tournaments when I was 12. But it was just something I enjoyed. When Rounders came out in 98 it became something all of my buddies wanted to take that 10$ from their parents and play cards, especially no limit holdem. If Rounders was about stud, or omaha 8...it never garners the attention it did beyond the film. Yes, he plays different games throughout, but the showdown with Teddy showcased a game nobody played in home games.

And was that guy saying Doug ****ing Polk serious? You think this dude rivals the likes of the others mentioned? Just funny how people view the world. He's a nobody in this conversation, hell if you're going to talk about individuals then Doyle is the clear answer.

Short answer: ESPN and hole card camera in a tie. Oh and whoever decided to really promote online poker/create online poker. It'd happen either way, but gotta give credit to the first

He was extra large and in charge

Mori Eskandani of High Stakes Poker and Poker After Dark is up there

Who?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mori_Eskandani