Chris Moneymaker - New Team ACR Pro

https://www.americascardroom.eu/acr-pros/chris-moneymaker/

The man who turned $86 to $2.5 million and the rest is history, is now an America's Cardroom Pro. This link goes into detail about it, and what a big sign for them. They are certainly making a push in the United States to become the primary choice for American players, and given the shared player pool, they have a huge advantage over sites like PartyPoker and PokerStars and wsop who don't have the benefit of a larger player pool.

It's going to be a very competitive market for players. I'm curious as to how those of you in the United States feel. Being in Canada, I can't relate to what has happened over the last 10-11 years, so this HAS to be exciting, and ACR is certainly making a push this year.

this is great news for acr, time to play in acr more

If you use Twitch, be sure to tune into America's Cardroom on Twitch, as there seems to be more news coming this month.

twitch.tv/americascardroom

They broadcast every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 3pm Eastern Standard Time, hosted by Justin Kelly (Fattrain).

ROW players who have the ability to play on multiple platforms are certainly the ones ACR wants to draw in, especially with all that GG Poker is doing right now. PartyPoker is running a lot of Twitter giveaways, of which I have won some tickets from them, and not tiny dollar tickets or anything, $11's, which is great.

PokerStars seem to be doing very little at this point, I suppose just banking on their being the world's largest poker site, though they seem to have fallen out of favor with some customers, with software being perhaps the biggest complaint (it certainly is mine). I disabled the throwables, something I just simply don't understand why it's so appealing. I don't care about throwing a piece of crap at you, I'm more interested in you passing your chips over to me.

Good news! Hopefully they will now make an App for playing on smartphones. Because it is impossible to play tournaments and SnGs from the browser version...

Pretty cool stuff. I wonder if he will play low stakes like he used to at PS? I think I have a screenshot somewhere of him sitting at my low stakes table.

Obviously I dont know the motivation of Chris, and maybe he just wanted to try something different after all those years. But to be honest in my opinion this is a huge step backwards for him. He is moving from representing the site, which is still the industry leader, to representing a basically illegal unregulated site like ACR, which has many issues and question marks.

MoneyMaker

ChrisMoneyMaker is a legend. He started the poker Boom by winning a satellite on PokerStars and then winning the WSOP Mainevent.

CardsChat has its own news on this, too.

See here

If i say this news shocks me ,that this is one hell of surprise and unexpected ,I would be such an a** liar . Ofcourse he would go somewhere else , ACR was one of my first thoughts , another was GGpoker , but since he lives in the USA , also ACR is better that GGpoker imo , so ...

Wishing to him good luck there , to represent the poker room the best he can ,he is one good flag and symbol/idol now for ACR .

BelFish said:

Good news! Hopefully they will now make an app for playing on smartphones. Because it is impossible to play tournaments and SnGs from the browser version...

Click to expand...

Well, good news here is that we are working on a full mobile version od the app, check more information here in our WPN public roadmap:

https://trello.com/c/J1TWehyo/51-mtts-on-mobile

ACR Rep

I Would Not Read Too Much Into Playing Low Stakes...

CowboyStomp said:

Pretty cool stuff. I wonder if he will play low stakes like he used to at PS? I think I have a screenshot somewhere of him sitting at my low stakes table.

Click to expand...

My uneducated guess would be that if you signed a PRO to be a "Face Of Your Site" you might encourage them to intermingle with the "unwashed masses" in lower stakes games... give them a thrill! Kind of sounds like it might be part of the Job Description.

Anyway, sounds like a positive for ACR, they seem to be enlarging there footprint in the poker world of late!

Best of Luck All, at ACR and every table!

CheezeWiz

Shells said:

CardsChat has its own news on this, too.

Chris Moneymaker Joins US-Facing Poker Site Americas Cardroom

Click to expand...

Nice, if there is anyone in professional poker who represents what CC is about it be Mr. Moneymaker.

Chris Moneymaker leaving Poker Stars and moving to ACR is the clearest evidence possible that Poker Stars is NEVER COMING BACK TO AMERICA.

And yeah, I know they're in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and now Michigan... so what? It's ring-fenced poker, meaning those sites are only allowed to play within their state's borders, or on a small shared player pool.

Mark my words, Americans will never be free to play poker with the rest of the world on the major sites... and we claim to be "the bastion of freedom"... what utter BS it all is.

Chris probably held out hope for the past decade that it would return, but even he has given up at long last. Feel free to disagree, this is merely my opinion.

We'll be stuck playing on "gray market" sites forever, with NO legal protection from our government, no legal backing. No, it's not illegal, the government won't come and arrest us for playing on ACR... but we're pretty much on our own if we end up in any kind of dispute. Why Chris Moneymaker is okay with it, I don't know, but I'd guess they simply made a better offer than whatever Stars was offering and most likely, Chris wanted to get back to playing poker "for real" without having to travel to Canada every time he wanted to play on Stars. In this day and age of stupid travel restrictions due to the Plandemic, Chris probably couldn't even travel to Canada anymore, so in that sense, he was forced into this move. I'm certainly not criticizing him or anything along those lines, I'm happy for him... Chris is a great guy, I played with him on Stars a bit since he was basically their "play chip pro", but he stopped participating a year or so ago... it was fun Chris. Barry Greenstein is also gone from Stars now, I miss him too.

It's a sad day for American poker players, but we've been dealing with this crap for the last ten years, it is just so absurd.

/soapbox

Carry on friends. Play well!

P.S. This tweet from Chris was pretty good, he didn't confirm but I would guess all those results are from ACR, no wonder he was so eager to sign on the dotted line!!!!!!!
https://twitter.com/CMONEYMAKER/status/1346336692240838656

Alizona said:

Chris probably held out hope for the past decade that it would return, but even he has given up at long last.

Click to expand...

Good point. Its obviously kind of weird to represent a poker site, where you can not legally play without travelling abroad. And even if he moved to one of the 3 states with legal online poker, he would still not be able to play events on the international site like the Sunday Million or the WSOOP or SCOOP. So in a sense the more surpricing thing is perhaps, that Chris held out for so long after Black Friday, and not the fact he finally left.

BelFish said:

Good news! Hopefully they will now make an app for playing on smartphones. Because it is impossible to play tournaments and SnGs from the browser version...

Click to expand...

ACR Rep posted about this, so hopefully you read what he/she posted. I haven't yet, but even on Twitch steams, they talk about it, so it's something that is going to happen sooner rather than later.

CowboyStomp said:

Pretty cool stuff. I wonder if he will play low stakes like he used to at PS? I think I have a screenshot somewhere of him sitting at my low stakes table.

Click to expand...

I'm pretty certain he will sit in those games, as that was part of his appeal at Stars. Also, it should help boost the Mixed Games as he played a lot of that while at Stars.

fundiver199 said:

Obviously I dont know the motivation of Chris, and maybe he just wanted to try something different after all those years. But to be honest in my opinion this is a huge step backwards for him. He is moving from representing the site, which is still the industry leader, to representing a basically illegal unregulated site like ACR, which has many issues and question marks.

Click to expand...

Maybe, but remember, he lives in the United States, and with the current global pandemic, travelling outside the United States is going to be difficult, and I don't think he had much appetite in doing that any longer just to grind. It seems like he will still travel for events which is probably more appealing and fun anyway. I don't agree that this is a step backwards for him at all. Who knows, maybe this could represent a step forward for WPN to operate legally in the long-term in the United States. Hopefully, for Americans, that's the end-game, and that WPN has a plan to execute that.

Ok, is his good bye video he sad he wants more time with the family instead of working. He got tired of that very quickly it seems. Or they offered too much money to turn down. ;-) Good for ACR though.

Stollpe said:

Ok, is his good bye video he sad he wants more time with the family instead of working. He got tired of that very quickly it seems. Or they offered too much money to turn down. ;-) Good for ACR though.

Click to expand...

If you look at my post above, I referenced a tweet Chris made on January 5, I posted the link to it... he won a TON of money, well over 100K, in a stretch of just 10 tournaments.

I believe this is what made him change his mind. I don't have any proof, I'm simply putting the puzzle pieces together.

In the tweet, Chris thanks fellow poker pro Faraz Jaka, and right below the tweet is a reply from Faraz. He says that he's been working with Chris on his poker game, and is quite happy to see the immediate results in Chris's game. 100K is a lot of dough even for a WSOP Main Event champ!!! It's been 17 years since that win, after all... I would imagine that 10-tournament run is his best string of cashes in many years, and it had to encourage him and lift his spirits and get his juices flowing again, know what I mean??!!

So that's my take. Sure, he could have had this planned all along, but as you point out, he didn't indicate it in his "goodbye, its been fun" video... knowing Chris just the little bit that I know him, from playing on the Poker Stars play chip side of things, Chris is just a terrific, humble, down-to-earth guy who I don't see as your typical degenerate lying poker player. And so for me, it all adds up to Chris being honest in his video - he DID intend to "quit", perhaps just play a few tournaments on ACR here and there, but when he had that string of success suddenly thanks to a few coaching sessions from Faraz... well, pretty sure that would probably change most people's minds, especially since it now involves no travel whatsoever... it's pretty much the perfect deal for him without much downside at all.

Good post, I just wanted to add my two cents if two cents is still worth a damn anymore. hehe

I like ACR more and more.

Maybe PokerStars made huge mistakes to let go such big names like Monemaker, Negreanu, Raymer and Elky.

Shumkoolie said:

Maybe, but remember, he lives in the United States, and with the current global pandemic, travelling outside the United States is going to be difficult

Click to expand...

Yeah I kind of forgot that, when I wrote my first comment. I can certainly see, why anyone would want to represent a site, where they can actually play without travelling to another country.

Shumkoolie said:

Who knows, maybe this could represent a step forward for WPN to operate legally in the long-term in the United States.

Click to expand...

I think, that might be kind of difficult. They have broken US law for several years, and without being an expert on the matter, it seems like, it would not be easy to then come forward and say "hey now we want to do things legally" without some kind of bill needing to be settled.

great news for acr but for me it has no significance

This is great news. Hoping this turns out well and brings more traffic to ACR.

Daniel72 said:

I like ACR more and more.

Maybe PokerStars made huge mistakes to let go such big names like Monemaker, Negreanu, Raymer and Elky.

Click to expand...

Can't forget the biggest name Russian online player either, Mikhail Shalamov (Innerpsy). I've peeked in on his streams on Twitch, and he's been playing a lot more on GG Poker. He was recently released from Stars as well, and perhaps those from Russia on here know more about his situation. I don't speak Russian and haven't been following his story closely, so I don't really know much about it.

I think many of those who left Stars also wanted to leave, as much as Stars wanted to part with them.

Alizona said:

So that's my take. Sure, he could have had this planned all along, but as you point out, he didn't indicate it in his "goodbye, its been fun" video... knowing Chris just the little bit that I know him, from playing on the Poker Stars play chip side of things, Chris is just a terrific, humble, down-to-earth guy who I don't see as your typical degenerate lying poker player. And so for me, it all adds up to Chris being honest in his video - he DID intend to "quit", perhaps just play a few tournaments on ACR here and there, but when he had that string of success suddenly thanks to a few coaching sessions from Faraz... well, pretty sure that would probably change most people's minds, especially since it now involves no travel whatsoever... it's pretty much the perfect deal for him without much downside at all.

Click to expand...

If you want to get a closer look into him, listen to his most recent appearance on Poker in the Ears podcast with James Hartigan and Stapes. I totally agree with you in that he's not your stereotypical poker player. He never aspired to be a professional poker player. He talks about the time just after he won the Main Event, that he didn't become a big name overnight, that it took many months before the boom really happened. He also talked about how Stars would put him in big buy-in tournaments and he basically told them to stop. He talked about how the pros at those tournaments didn't care that he was there, that his appeal was to the non-pros that would play the smaller buy-in tournaments, those who would make a special trip out to their nearest casino during a tour's stop and take a shot at a $500/$1k/$1500. Playing in those tournaments was where he felt the most comfortable in because he was just like those people who competed - except he won the Main Event.

I highly suggest listening to that episode - I mean, it's a great podcast to begin with, but it gives you a perspective on him that was not really talked about at all before.

I saw the news just recently that Chris Moneymaker has left PokerStars. Apparently, he wasn't worried about it. Popular players do not disappear for a long time from sight.

Good morning.I thought he was gonna choose Party Poker or GG Poker.But I remember that Moneymaker said in an interview after leaving PokerStars,he was planning to stay more time with his family.This being so,ACR was the best choice.Best of luck to this legeng.

Don't play a lot there 'cause i can't continue deep stack tournament on mobile if i have to leave home.