Poker gems, #334

Eric Raskin, editor-in-chief of All In magazine, in an unusually candid assessment of Darvin Moon's play at the final table of the World Series of Poker main event; from All In magazine, December, 2009, p. 8.


He freely admitted to the press that his path to the November Nine was paved with extraordinary luck. Still, we all assumed he had to be an above-average player to take advantage of all that luck and build such a dominating chip stack.

At the final table, we found out differently. Moon played some of the worst poker imaginable. He tried to bully opponents at all the wrong times, made a couple of calls that only a true amateur would make, and made it to the final two on sheer good fortune. He tried an all-in bluff on Antoine Saout after whiffing on the flop, doubling up the Frenchman. He made a terrible bluff-raise against Steven Begleiter on the flop, then folded to Begleiter's all-in move despite getting about 7 1/2-1 on his money to call. He got lucky to eliminate Ivey despite being dominated, then did the same to Begleiter. He ran an all-in move with K-9 smack into Cada's aces. He made an unforgivably loose all-in call with K-J and drew out to eliminate Eric Buchman. And on the final hand of the tournament, his call of Cada's all in with Q-J was utterly mystifying.

Again, nothing personal against Moon. He seeems like a nice enough, humble enough guy. But he would have been a horrible ambassador for the game, shunning media opportunities and potentially removing all of his winnings from the poker economy. Cada appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman a week after winning. It's not a stretch to wonder whether Moon even knows who David Letterman is.