This hand occurred during the 2024 Triton Series Montenegro High Roller $40K No Limit Mystery Bounty event between Chris Moneymaker and Nikita Kuznetsov. The event had 151 entrants with a $40,000 buy-in and $669,000 up top for the eventual champion. Moneymaker had already taken down Event #1 for $903,000.
Moneymaker was the chip leader as this hand was dealt and sat on 8.1M chips with six players remaining. Kuznetsov was short with 13 big blinds at 3.3M. The blinds were 125,000/250,000 with a 250,000 big blind ante.
Moneymaker confessed that this hand was pivotal because it severed his chip lead and changed the entire dynamic of the Montenegro final table.
In the video above, Moneymaker talks through the hand moment-to-moment, providing exclusive insight into the thought process of a professional player who had super-charged the poker world with his dynamic 2003 WSOP Main Event win, creating what was eventually called –The Moneymaker Effect.
The Moneymaker resurgence
The poker industry has benefited immensely from the affable Moneymaker over the last 21 years. He had been one of the more prominent faces for online giant Pokerstars as an ambassador until they parted ways at the close of 2020. ACR Poker quickly scooped him up as one of their lineups of superstar Team Pros in early 2021.
Not one to be complacent, Moneymaker launched The Moneymaker Poker Tour with Executive Manager Tony Burns last May. He created the tournament series to offer players the chance to have their own life-changing poker experiences, such as the one he experienced at the WSOP in 2003.
Last December, the tour partnered with one of Texas' more popular cardrooms, the Texas Card House in Houston. More recently, Moneymaker opened a new cardroom sporting eight tables called the Moneymaker Social Louisville in Kentucky.
Over the last few years, Moneymaker has put in the work and upped his game. The Triton Series has been particularly profitable for him. Last year, he finished fifth in the $262,500 NLH Invitational in London for $2,030,000. He knocked on the title door twice at the recent Montenegro series, taking down third at the $40K Mystery Bounty for $311,000 and three days earlier took home the champions trophy at the $25K NLH Super High Roller event for $903,000.
Images courtesy of Triton Poker/Joe Giron
