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Poker Legends: Chris Moorman

Written by Ben Blaschke

Up until now, our Poker Legends series has focused primarily on the most successful players in live tournament history – those who cut their teeth in bricks and mortar casinos long before the poker boom made their profession popular, or who have found their success in the major tournament series such as the WSOP or WPT.

For the casual player watching from afar and dreaming of one day making a WSOP final table, these are the people they look up to – the likes of 13-time bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth, ice cool Phil Ivey, always entertaining Daniel Negreanu and Asian pioneer Johnny Chan.

But in the online world there is a whole other group of elite players who choose to spend their days in front of computer screens rather than the hustle and bustle of their local casino. Although many have also enjoyed some success in the live arena, their bread and butter is online and they have developed a whole range of specialized skills to suit. Maestros at multi-tabling, they work hard at mastering complex mathematical equations yet have learnt to make the most difficult of decisions in a matter of seconds. And they’re aggressive – relentlessly so – because the beauty of online is there are always more tournaments ready to go.

When it comes to online tournament pros, it’s hard to go past England’s Chris Moorman. Since he first fell in love with the game back in 2006, Moorman has won well over US$10 million in online tournaments and aside from being the only person to have done so, he sits more than US$3 million clear of his nearest rival!

The 28-year-old also boasts a record 20 Triple Crowns – the not so simple task of winning three different tournaments on three different sites within a specified seven day period, with each tournament requiring a minimum prize pool of US$10,000 and at least 100 players.

Incredibly, he boasts only a handful of six-figure scores along the way although his conversion rate when it comes to turning an in-the-money finish into a top three placing is remarkable.

No doubt the enormous volume Moorman puts in at the tables hasn’t hurt those figures, but just to emphasise his ability to crush tournaments he boasts a pretty decent live record too. His tally includes four WSOP final tables including a runner-up finish in the WSOPE Main Event in 2011 for US$1.07 million, and earlier this year won his first WPT title at the LA Poker Classic for US$1.015 million.