Chris Moneymaker dominates high-stakes poker livestream for two consecutive days

Chris Moneymaker dominated high-stakes cash games for two consecutive days during PokerGO's "No Gamble, No Future" livestream, accumulating nearly $150,000 in profits over the weekend. Phil Hellmuth's tight playing style drew criticism from commentators.

During the two-day "No Gamble, No Future" livestream on PokerGO, Chris Moneymaker's performance seemed to have returned to 2003.

This Poker Hall of Famer was in excellent form, proving that he can still beat tough opponents 23 years after winning the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event. Saturday and Sunday's matches were anything but dull, with his competitors including Shaun Deeb, Phil Hellmuth, Erick Lindgren, Tom Dwan, Jared Bleznick, and Alan Keating.

However, none of these great poker players can compare to the main driving force behind the poker craze more than 20 years ago. This world champion's dominance was so overwhelming that commentator Nick Wright dubbed Sunday's livestream the "Chris Moneymaker Show."

Chris Moneymaker Show

Moneymaker won $75,400 in Saturday's $100/$200 No-Limit Texas Hold'em cash game. The biggest winners of the day were Lindgren ($113,600) and Dwan ($98,800). But the 2003 Main Event champion dominated the game again after returning on Sunday, although he encountered some turbulence after a hot start.

Most of the large pots he participated in went his way. In one hand, he called pre-flop with the Ace of Hearts and the Queen of Clubs against Bleznick's four all-in raises with the Ace of Clubs and the 10 of Clubs, making the pot $76,000. The board ran out the 6 of Clubs, 4 of Clubs, 7 of Diamonds, 2 of Diamonds, and Queen of Diamonds. Bleznick had a flush draw on the flop, but it didn't come through on the turn or river.

However, Moneymaker's dominance then took a sharp turn for the worse. At one point on the second day of the tournament, he had won nearly $150,000. But his hot streak began to wane, and his winnings for that session briefly dropped below $70,000. He then rebounded, winning several small pots later in the game, ultimately finishing with a profit of $74,400, almost exactly the same amount he had won the previous day. This brought his total winnings for the No Gamble, No Future weekend to $149,800.

On the other hand, Hellmuth played very tightly, which led Wright (in his first NGNF commentary role) to constantly criticize the "poker brat's" style. However, the 17-time WSOP bracelet winner managed to double up his chips late in the game against Lindgren, securing a profitable close, albeit only $2,600. Despite winning a total of $14,400 over two days, his pre-flop raising rate of only six percent of hands has been a key point of Wright's continued criticism.

Wright had criticized Hellmuth for only raising 6% of his hands pre-flop. In response, the Fox Sports talk show host decided to leave the studio midway through Saturday's broadcast to join the game himself, resulting in a $17,100 loss.

After losing his initial buy-in, Hellmuth raised to $10,000 on his first re-buy hand with Jx 6x in the big blind with a $200 hand. Moneymaker, in the small blind, aggressively raised with pocket jacks and easily won the pot. Keating, who only played on Saturday, was the biggest loser overall, losing $197,300 in just five hours of play. However, he did execute an epic bluff against Dwan—Queen-high against Dwan's top pair.

Deeb was the only player to lose money over both days of the tournament. The reigning WSOP Player of the Year lost $85,200 on Saturday and another $13,700 on Sunday. But when he arrived on Sunday, he told the tables that he had played until the early hours of the morning in a cash game that followed another live stream, and that his winnings for the day had broken even.