The 34th annual World Series of Poker, held at Binion's Horseshoe Hotel & Casino in downtown Las Vegas, was won by Chris Moneymaker (yes, that's his real name), a player who had never engaged in live tournament poker play, only online.  He qualified for the Series by entering side tournaments on the internet, on sites such as PartyPoker.com, ParadisePoker.com, PokerStars.com and Ultimatebet.com.  He reportedly bought in initially for just $40, and the majority of the entrants also paid a similarly small fee.  Only 63 of the total 839 players paid the full entry fee of $10,000 to compete for the record-breaking prize of $2.5 million.  The fact that Moneymaker, an accountant from Tennessee, won in the manner he did seemed to show poker players everywhere that a person can become a card expert in his home just playing on the internet.  "If I can win it, anybody can," said Moneymaker.

The number of competitors for the WSOP 2003 was also a record, about 33% more players than 2002.  The champion of 2002, Robert Varkony, was an unknown who took a cool $2 million away from other longtime expert poker players.  He had entered this year, but was eliminated in the first round of play.

Moneymaker said he "bluffed a lot during this tournament, but somehow I got away with it."  The last game between him and Ihsan Farha was No-Limit Texas Hold'em, and Moneymaker won this too by a successful bluff.  His two cards were a five and a four, Farha's a ten and a Jack.  The three shared cards were a Jack, a five and four.  So Farha had at that point a pair of Jacks, while Moneymaker had two pair.

Then Farha, obviously no lily-livered player, bet everything -- over a million dollars in chips, and his opponent matched it.  But the dealer drew an eight and a five as the last shared cards, gifting Moneymaker with a full house.

"We've proven that people who play on the internet are just as good as those who play in casinos," said Dan Goldman, vice president of marketing for PokerStars.com.

Another notable past WSOP player, James McManus, wrote a book about his mission to get into the winning rounds of the World Series -- a mission he accomplished, and in fact won $247,760.  Positively Fifth Street, published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, tells how McManus was assigned by Harper's Magazine to write an article about the WSOP, and at the same time, keep an eye on the Ted Binion murder trial that was being conducted very close by in Las Vegas.  McManus decided to enter the tournament and write about it that way.  He describes himself as a "pretty fair" amateur player, but after intense study of
books by poker professionals (some of these pros he met up with in the WSOP), tons of practice, and many, many games played against the computer, he got into and won a satellite tournament and qualified to enter the World Series.  Sound familiar?