In a big week that included the kick-off of their record-breaking Venom tournament, America's Cardroom has also announced their latest sponsored pro.
His first name is Dmitry, though his surname remains under wraps for now. This is because Dmitry, known as "psycho29rus" on ACR, won his sponsorship online through the Next Moneymaker event.
This event saw 360 players battle it out for a $105,000 sponsorship deal. Each player had won their seat in the tourney through a series of weekly leaderboards.
For his victory, "psycho29rus" gets $25,000 in cash, $40,000 in online tournament buy-ins, and another $40,000 in live tournament buy-ins. He will be contractually obligated to play certain events and to wear an ACR patch during the live events. Nice work if you can get it.
It is a fabulous opportunity to work alongside Chris Moneymaker, Jeff Boski, and Vanessa Kade.
Moneymaker and Jon Van Fleet did the commentary for the event's final table. After it finished, they got Dmitry on the line for a fabulously awkward post-tournament interview. During their brief chat, Moneymaker and Van Fleet found out in real-time that Dmitry's internet connection was extremely laggy and he had only slightly more English than the two Americans had Russian.
"I know vodka," Moneymaker said in baffled reply to hearing that Dmitry is from the city of Arkhangelsk. The interview ends shortly after that.
ACR tweeted about their new pro. "Time to crown the Next Moneymaker!" the ACR Twitter account wrote. "Psycho29rus is our new sponsored pro and will represent #ACR both on and off the felt this year. Kudos and welcome to the #Moneymaker family!"
The road to sponsorship
The Next Moneymaker event was the culmination of twelve weeks of tournaments. Four times a day for twelve weeks, ACR ran $0.01 buy-in Texas hold 'em events. The results of each week's twenty-eight events contributed to a weekly leaderboard. The top 30 players on the leaderboard each week got tickets to the Next Moneymaker event.
Moneymaker joined ACR recently, after leaving his long-term partnership with PokerStars. It was big news and marked a definite jump up in the profile of ACR's team of pros.
While Dmitry is unlikely to spark a poker revolution with his win — in the way that Moneymaker's 2003 WSOP win did — his crowning is yet another sharp PR move from ACR.
The Moneymaker hand
The tournament ended with Dmitry heads up with "McFloppity."
The money went in on the turn with 8❤️4♠2♦️Q♠ on the board. McFloppity flipped A♦️3♦️ for an ace-high with a draw to the wheel. Dmitry countered with K♠8♠ for a pair of eights and a flush draw. The river was a red 6, just one pip shy of giving the game to McFloppity.
For their second-place finish, McFloppity won a ticket to the Venom, worth $2,650.
You can find a video of the hand on ACR's Twitter feed, captioned with: "IT IS ALL OVER!!! The #NextMoneymaker champion has been crowned!" The full final table is available on the company's Twitch channel.
Featured image source: Twitter
