The shadowy guy is none other than Sammy "Mister Cool" Farha, the 55-year-old Lebanese-born runner-up to Moneymaker in the seminal 2003 World Series of Poker. Farha, who’s been playing poker professionally for the past 25 years, owns three WSOP bracelets (1996, 2006, 2010), all in Omaha games, and has cashed in nine WSOP events. He’s the co-author of Farha on Omaha and is known primarily as a high-stakes Omaha cash player.
It’s hard to say what hand they’re playing, though it could be what’s remembered as the greatest hand in televised-poker history—known as "the bluff of the century" or to some as simply "The Bluff."
Meanwhile, as if that hand wasn’t enough drama, there was the classic spectacle of the heads-up match itself: between the favorite, a grizzled old pro, and the underdog, the kid with the ridiculously unlikely name who won his seat in an online satellite and was playing in the first live-poker tournament of his life. (You can view the final hands via the YouTube video posted on our home page.)
Amazingly enough, there was also all kinds of other excitement going on that year, including a sizable contingent of young players from the burgeoning world of online poker; ESPN producing the WSOP as a major sporting event for the first time; also for the first time, the use of hole-card cameras, a highly controversial development among players, not to mention the Nevada Gaming Control Board; the size of the Main Event, more than double than just a few years earlier; and the rumors swirling around that Binion’s Horseshoe, which had hosted and run the WSOP since 1970, might be sold, along with the tournament (the rumors were confirmed: Harrah’s bought Binion’s and the WSOP the following January).
But back to the heads-up match, you can count on the fingers of one hand the number of veteran observers who predicted that the minnow would eat the shark. In fact, Sammy himself was so overconfident he’d prevail that he demanded a bigger share of the chop while negotiating with Chris in the men’s room, even though Moneymaker had a 2-to-1 chip lead. It not only pissed Chris off, it also clued him in to Farha’s game plan, on which Moneymaker capitalized.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
That history, along with all the background (TV, online poker, Binion’s, the coming poker explosion) is described in detail by 30 participants in our new book, The Moneymaker Effect, which is now available.
Those interviewed by author Eric Raskin, editor-in-chief since 2005 of ALL IN magazine and allinmag.com, include poker superstars (Ivey, Hellmuth, Negreanu, Duke, Harrington, Lederer, Farha, Greenstein, Seidel, Boyd, and a few others); ESPN senior programming executives, the heads of the video production company, and the on-air talent; Binion’s director of public relations and the World Series of Poker tournament director; PokerStars.com vice president of marketing; the inventor of the hole-card camera; and of course Chris Moneymaker himself, along with his dad Mike and two close friends.
It’s a thrilling behind-the-scenes look at one of the greatest dark-horse victories in sports history.
By the way, in a rematch between Farha and Moneymaker a few months after the Main event, organized by PokerStars, Farha won handily. They played again in a special competition during the 2011 WSOP, and Moneymaker took two out of three to win the match.
There's a limited-duration introductory discount on The Moneymaker Effect at ShopLVA.com, where you can purchase the paperback edition for 50% off, plus $3 reduced shipping, for a total of just $11.48 all-in. You can also find links there to buy the book for all major e-book platforms, including Kindle, Nook, and Apple devices.
