Chris Moorman Tells All in Revealing AMA Session on Reddit

Chris Moorman is a two-time WSOP bracelet winner, and one of the most successful online tournament poker players in the game’s glorious history. So when he took to Reddit to answer as many fans’ questions as possible, the metaphorical switchboard lit up. The ‘Ask Me Anything’ (AMA) thread saw the British poker legend discuss questions on his origin story in the game, fatherhood and prop bets with other players.

How Chris Moorman Became a Poker Pro

“By playing every day I was able to level up and was crushing six tables of $1/2 cash by the time University restarted.”

The legend of Chris Moorman is one that has inspired many players to download an online poker client, deposit their first $10 and start playing poker. The perception might be that from the moment he started playing, the man known online as ‘Moorman1’ was winning but that isn’t quite the full story. Discovering poker while studying economics at University, Chris adapted his love of card games such as bridge and rummy when he was a child to friendly poker games with his buddies.

“We transitioned to playing online when we came across a UK student championship freeroll which took place every Monday night,” Chris describes. “I was fortunate enough to come second in it one week for $300 and decided to keep the money online and play with it rather than cashing out.”

That decision turned out to be one of the worst of his poker life, as Chris then switched to cash games and lost all but $25 of his bankroll. However, he put his last $25 into a Sit N Go and won it for $150. After taking a break, he went away and discovered poker forums and books, developing his early strategies in the game.

“The all in strategy with any two cards was retired and purely reserved for rebuy periods and bubble play/certain b-v-b spots after this,” Chris says. “I downloaded PokerTracker and started to work closely with that alongside my cash games. I analyzed all of the HUD stats and my opponents’ plays and took detailed notes.”

As his obsession grew with poker, Chris loved exploiting others weaknesses how his own had been only a few weeks earlier. Re-entering cash games in the “$0.50/$1 streets”, Chris became one of the best at that level and built his bankroll back up.

“That summer at University, I made up a white lie to my parents that I’d got a job in the local supermarket just off,” he writes. “Meanwhile, me and my best mate Stuart where playing the online cash tables and small tournaments whilst watching an epic Ashes series on the TV with Freddie Flint,off and co. The aim was to make a similar amount to what I would have done in a regular summer job, but by playing every day I was able to level up and was crushing six tables of $1/2 cash by the time University restarted. I probably made triple the amount I planned to.”

Reaching Out to Poker Heroes

“I watched the rest of the tournament until they took it all down and was in awe of their game.”

While playing a $50-entry monthly tournament on one site, Chris was making a deep run and was chasing $30,000 up top. He’d got the bug for tournament poker and described cash games as starting to become “a bit routine like a job”

“This felt new and I was having a huge adrenaline rush and I liked the feeling!” he says. “The player on my left got disconnected for over an hour and I was thinking this is good for me I can just steal their blinds. What I didn’t anticipate was that someone else would do it before me. Back then, at that stage in my game it was illegal to reraise without a premium, so I waited and waited and finally found ace-king when this player ‘Geeforce1’ who had kept stealing the blinds opened and to my shock called my all in with AQ! They hit and I was out in 18^th place and devastated.”

Nine times out of 10 in that situation, Chris admits that he would have rage-quit, but instead, he decided to carry on watching the tournament play out and kept an eye on his nemesis at the felt.

“I watched the rest of the tournament until they took it all down and was in awe of their game; it was like they were playing a different game! I wrote a nice message in chat to them after they took it down and to my surprise they ended up adding me on MSN Messenger and became a poker mentor for me.”

Both ‘Geeforce1’ (David Gent) and his friend ‘Badpab2’ (Paul Foltyn) became Chris’ mentors in the game and his improvement in those heady days of the early-mid 2000s is something he often credits them with.

“I became even more passionate about the game and started to develop my game much more quickly, being able to bounce ideas off actual professional players.”

Poker and Fatherhood

Since the glory days of the early poker boom, Chris Moorman has won an estimated $14m in online tournament earnings alone, and become a live great too, claiming two WSOP bracelets, two WSOP Circuit rings and over $11,000,000 in live tournament earnings to add to his online wealth. Then earlier this year, he and his fianceé Katie Lindsay were blessed with a baby boy, Mikel. Chris loves being a doting father and their base in Las Vegas – Katie is an ACR Pro too – is now a loving family home.

“It is a complete lifestyle changer and in anticipation of that I decided to take a complete break from live poker after he was born so that I could be around as much as possible to help out and to keep morale high!” Chris said of becoming a father. “I think the real test is to come in the next few months when I go and play the WSOP most days. I’ve still been playing a fair bit online in the meantime to prepare for the summer and get the reps in, but the real serious sessions are just on Sunday where I will really focus in my office area without distractions.”

When he’s not grinding Sundays or in the lab ahead of the WSOP, Chris employs a more relaxed schedule, and this week even found the time to do some commentary, bringing Pedro Neves’ fourth GGMillion$ title on GGPoker to life with some entertaining co-commentary and analysis alongside regular host Jeff Gross.

“I only play two or three tables so that I am still available to help with things,” he writes. “Results have been great so far with two $100k+ scores and probably six or seven outright wins. The baby rungood is real!”

Other Tough Questions Posed by Poker Fans

Chris was asked plenty of big questions over the course of the session, including how he plays pocket jacks, a hand many players hate.

“I love [pocket jacks]. my nemesis hand is actually pocket kings a.k.a. ‘The Butchers’.” Chris replied.

When asked if he wanted to title his 2014 book Moorman’s Book of Poker by the much catchier moniker The Book of Moorman, Chris was quite clear.

“Of course! but would have been legal issues potentially and you don’t make enough money writing a book to sweat those lol.”

Asked if he plays online anywhere else and what volume he sticks to, Chris told fans that he has a ‘sweet spot’ of around a dozen tables at a time.

“I play a few other sites from Vegas as well such as wsop.com but the majority is ACR,” he wrote in reply. “I used to play a lot more tables back in the day when edges were far greater. Now I play a max of 14 I’d say on a busy Sunday but a lot of that is max late regging so easy decisions. Ideally I like to stay at 12 or under although too few and I start getting fancy play syndrome!”

When it comes to tournament selection, you won’t be surprised to learn that Chris has narrowed in on exactly what his biggest strengths are.

“I pick the ones which I have the biggest edge in and in general try to play larger fields as I like to play for a lot of buy-ins. Overall, I prefer 6-max and bounty tournaments because those are the formats that suit my game and the ones that I feel like I have the biggest edge in.”

If you missed any of the questions or want to dive deeper into the life and times of Chris Moorman we recommend heading to the Reddit thread today, where the British player opens up on what makes him tick. With the World Series of Poker approaching, one of poker’s most successful tournament players admits he is “desperate” to win that third WSOP gold bracelet.

Given his track record, who would bet against him?