This is the story behind the most dramatic World Series of Poker ever and its lasting effects, told by the players, the TV execs, the tournament directors, techs, writers, and the 2003 WSOP champ himself, Chris Moneymaker. Moneymaker, an amateur poker player with a name too good to be true, defied the odds to win the 2003 WSOP main event, just as the twin inventions of online poker and the hole-card camera simultaneously arrived to revolutionize a game long-relegated to smoky bars and living rooms. More than a decade later, with the online-poker world in an ongoing state of flux, the "Moneymaker Effect" continues to reverberate while the recollections and insights of the more than 30 eyewitness contributors remain as relevant and insightful as ever, whether the reader is a poker player or simply interested in a great real-life narrative. Chris Moneymaker's improbable tale -- amidst the backdrop of old-school gamblers, Binion's casino and the WSOP -- comes to life in this fabulous oral history of the journey that changed poker forever. --Norman Chad, ESPN poker analyst Do you love it when the underdog wins big? If so, then Eric Raskin's The Moneymaker Effect, which recounts in eyewitness detail Chris Moneymaker's epic victory in the 2003 World Series of Poker, will blow you away. Not since the 1980 Winter Olympics, when the unheralded United States hockey team smoked the world- champion Soviets to win the gold, has a long-shot amateur so thoroughly thrashed the big-time professionals in the world of sports. In so doing, Moneymaker also set off the sonic boom that is today's multi-billion-dollar global poker industry. --Terry Hummel, former Rolling Stone publisher Eric Raskin is no stranger to covering poker: He has been the editor-in-chief of ALL IN magazine and its website allinmag.com since 2005. Eric is also a contributor to countless magazines and websites, including Grantland.com, Playboy, ESPN The Magazine , ESPN.com, and HBO.com. When he's not writing or editing poker articles, the majority of his work focuses on boxing. He is a six-time Boxing Writers Association of America award winner.