Chris Moorman Reveals How He Became Online Poker's Best Player

His mother thought he was stacking shelves at a grocery store, but Chris Moorman was stacking virtual chips instead.

Deception and trickery is part of every successful poker player's playbook and none have found more success online than Moorman, whose winnings on the online felt have surpassed $14 million. But in order to reach the pinnacle of the online poker world, Chris had to first keep his poker-playing a secret from mum and dad, before eventually finding a way to tell them about his exploits and success.

It took some effort, but he won them over, so much so that his father, Simon, became a chip off the young block, winning the 2009 Grosvenor Poker Tour Main Event in Manchester for $131,545 after Chris paid his £1,060 entry fee as a birthday present. Simon became the first among the Moorman clan to win a live tournament, making it a point to remind his son of that fact at every opportunity.

“I’d done 40 or 50 of these events at the time and hadn’t won anything in them, so he [Simon] was giving me a bit of stick,” Chris told the Mirror.

Excelling at Live Poker

The teasing from dad likely stopped this summer after Moorman took home his first WSOP gold bracelet in $3,000 NLHE 6-Handed for $498,682. Or perhaps Simon's needling became non-existent in 2014 when Chris won the $10,000 WPT LA Poker Classic Main Event for more than $1 million.

Those successes on the live tournament circuit were not as easy to come by as his mastery of the online game, Moorman admitted. But those live earnings have since gone over $5 million after Chris worked on his weaknesses.

“I didn’t make my first final table for four years, even though I was ranked number 1 online," he said. “I was giving away information with my face, but I built my confidence and have been pretty consistent since 2011.”

That consistency began while a student at the University of Essex, with Moorman playing seven days a week and sacrificing nights out with his mates in order to crush online. His bankroll continued growing, providing a lesson in economics that his professors weren't teaching.

Amazing Online Stats

So school and the pursuit of a degree came in second place, while poker and the pursuit of championships came in first. Not a bad choice considering Moorman's combined earnings approaching $20 million and over 340 online poker tournament victories.

Along the way, Moorman fell in love and got married, and found the time to write a couple of books. His latest, “Moorman: The Inside Story of the Most Successful Online Poker Player of All Time,” was released just a couple of months ago and is available at Amazon.

A fascinating life and story, to be sure, and plenty yet to come from the 32-year-old who also handles ambassador duties for 888poker.