Part 1 Nicholas has been playing poker ever since the Moneymaker poker boom. For those unfamiliar with Mr. Chris Moneymaker, he was an amateur tax accountant who entered the 2003 World Series of Poker Main Event tournament. Moneymaker first parlayed his $40 dollars investment into a $10,000 seat by winning a satellite tournament. Due to the improbability of outlasting thousands of opponents, many choose to take the cash right then and right there. Not Mr. Moneymaker. He decided to play it - and after five grueling days and intense battle with professionals and amateurs alike, Moneymaker faced his last opponent standing: Sammy Farha. Sammy Farha was a long time Lebanese American top professional who played the highest cash games in Las Vegas. However, it was perhaps Moneymaker's fate to win that tournament that year. He felt nothing could stop him. On the last hand of the tournament, Moneymaker flopped bottom two pair vs. Sammy Farha's top pair and was a 70-30 favorite heading into 4th street (the turn card). 2003 Main Event final hand: Sammy Farha (J 10) vs. Chris Moneymaker (5 4), flop: J 5 4 (flop) 8 (turn) 5 (river) The turn and the river card did nothing to improve Sammy's hand and Chris Moneymaker became the first real amateur player to win the Main Event winning over $2.5M dollars. Not too bad for an accountant from Tennessee they said. It was precisely what fueled the poker boom in America. The classic rags to riches American dream, a life changing opportunity, that on any given day, an amateur could beat the pros in their game. They called this the Moneymaker Effect, named after the amateur poker player from Tennessee. Then followed the online poker boom. Online poker businesses, Pokerstars and Full Tilt Poker became the household names for all types of players - heck, everyone was playing the game now - college kids, your typical 9 to 5 average Joe, professionals you name it. Of course in the end aside from the top elite, when calculating the rake, commissions amassed from over billions of hands dealt, the only true winners in the game were the online poker businesses and the owners of these sites. Finally our government decided that they too wanted a piece of this action and are currently in the process of making the game state regulated. Las Vegas and New Jersey have been the frontrunners so far. Upon graduating from university, Nicholas had received an entry level position at Deloitte in their financial advisory department in Manhattan. He had graduated from Georgetown University as a finance major, and was looking to gain some real life experience before getting his MBA. As months passed by and Nick felt accustomed to his role as an analyst, he looked back at his years prior to graduation, particularly the $1/$2 no limit poker game running all night just outside of Healy Gates at Georgetown. to be continued.