"What were there, 6,400 players in this tournament?" asked a shocked Darvin Moon. "I'd guess about 6,300 of them are better poker players than I am."
In the player field that made up the preliminary Main Event for the 2009 WSOP this summer, there couldn’t have been a more random player to make the final table that will be played out this November, than
45-year-old Darvin Moon. The chip leader by a large margin, this logger from Oakland, Maryland could have very well stepped out of the TV show Ax Men.
Considered an amateur by all standards, save the fact that he’s one of the November Nine, he has no player ranking in the Player of the Year listings for any year, much less this one, and he has no live
tournament earnings registered in any of the online player stat records, though he has been playing poker for three years. In fact, he didn’t even have to buy into the Main Event. He won his seat in a satellite tournament at Wheeling Island Casino in West Virginia.
While some may say it was all in the cards for Moon, getting dealt good cards hand after hand, he’ll have to prove himself worthy of a professional title come November. Moon even admits that he’s been rather lucky so far:
"With the cards I'm getting it's easy. The first hand I sat down I had pocket kings and rivered trips. Three hands later I had pocket aces and flopped trips. How hard is it?"
Moon, being the average American working class citizen and perhaps the last achiever of the American dream, owning his own business, he is adamant that his successful run this summer and his trail to the final table won’t change his life.
With the $1 million he’s guaranteed to take home come November, his plans are to invest in the lives of his parents and return to work, eventually taking a couple of months off to explore Alaska.
Moon says, "I told them as soon as I go card dead you guys will eat me alive. I'm humble. I know where I stand among the class of people I'm against. I'm outclassed by so far."
Being so modest with a truly likable personality—not your typical pompous stereotyped poker pro—he’s likely to be favored by many poker fans who can relate to his unpretentious outlook on success and life in general.
He’s made it clear that he’s not here for the money; he just loves poker.
Read about all the WSOP 2009 November Nine.
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