At Poker World Series, Unlikely Player Poised To Win

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GUY RAZ, host:

Oh, by the way, you made it to the final table at the World Series of Poker back in 2000. What do you think of this Darvin Moon fellow? Do you think he has a shot?

Mr. McMANUS: Well, if I proved anything in 2000, it's that if you play reasonably well and get very lucky. Nobody wins a poker tournament without playing very, very well and getting extremely lucky. And Darvin Moon, he would be the person that I would bet on. And I wish Darvin luck.

Mr. DARVIN MOON (Chip Leader, World Series of Poker): Thank you. I'm going to need all the luck I can get.

RAZ: That is Darvin Moon, and he's about as far as you can get from poker royalty. Darvin Moon owns his own logging business in a remote part of Western Maryland nestled deep in the Appalachian Mountains.

Now, before he entered the World Series of Poker this year, he'd never even been to Las Vegas, he'd never played online. He's a purely recreational player. Yet today, he went into the final table as the chip leader. He likes being the self-described dumb hillbilly that none of the high rollers can figure out.

Take a listen to this ESPN broadcast from earlier in the tournament when Darvin Moon pushed in a huge raise, which took poker pro Antonio Esfandiari by surprise.

(Soundbite of ESPN, "World Series of Poker")

Unidentified Man #1: Good hand.

Unidentified Man #2: How much did you make it, sir?

Mr. MOON: $5 million.

Unidentified Man #2: Why did you make it so much?

Mr. MOON: I'm new at this game. I over raise, I under raise, I'm not sure.

Unidentified Man #1: Sounds like a wolf in sheep's clothing to me.

RAZ: By making it to the final table, Darvin Moon has already taken home more than a million dollars.

Before he left for Las Vegas, I spoke with him from a spot near one of his logging sites in Oakland, Maryland. I asked how this whole odyssey got started.

Mr. MOON: Some of my friends that play here went to Wheeling, West Virginia, with me, and there's a little casino there. We went there and played in a qualifier, and I won that qualifier.

I played the night before at our American Legion here in Oakland for $30, and won the tournament. And then I went to Wheeling - took that money and went to Wheeling. I started this thing on $30.

RAZ: So between March of 2009 and November, you have turned $30 into almost a million and a half.

Mr. MOON: It's not bad return on your money. I don't think the banks give me that much interest. So...

(Soundbite of laughter)

RAZ: If you win it all - I understand you can walk away with something like eight and a half million dollars.

Mr. MOON: Yes, that's correct.

RAZ: You actually saw what that looked like.

Mr. MOON: Yeah, they - there at the end, they put the whole eight and a half out there. Yeah.

RAZ: Now, when you play poker, you've got to keep a, presumably, a poker face, right? I mean, you've got to pretend like nothing fazes you. But when you see eight and a half million dollars sitting on a table right in front of you, is it hard to keep that poker face?

Mr. MOON: Yeah. I mean, it's - you want to kind of crack a smile, but it's not mine yet. It won't be mine until after the ninth, and then you might see me smile a little bit, but I doubt it.

RAZ: Are you nervous?

Mr. MOON: No, not at all. I'm not nervous. I've been through 10 times worse than what I'm going through now. Hell, you can't make me nervous.

RAZ: How did you get into poker?

Mr. MOON: A bunch of us played softball together. And we quit playing softball and started playing cards.

RAZ: Well, why did you quit playing softball?

Mr. MOON: Age and weight. I'm a fat guy.

(Soundbite of laughter)

RAZ: Well, when you got back to Oakland, Maryland, you know, back to see your friends that you normally play poker with, did they treat you any differently?

Mr. MOON: No. They all still call me a donkey and tell me I'm a terrible card player and�

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. MOON: �it's all the same.

RAZ: Is it sort of strange that all these people fuss over you and probably call you, you know, Mr. Moon and all these things?

Mr. MOON: Yeah. Yeah, that's a little different. It's - you go in a restaurant and everybody is, you know, talking to you. And I like to go in a restaurant, sit down and eat, and get up and leave�

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. MOON: �and nobody even recognizes you. That don't happen any more.

RAZ: I read that you actually took some of your winnings and helped fix up your parents' home.

Mr. MOON: Yeah, I put a new roof on their home. There's a little church in our community, I think there's like 20 people that attend that church. There's a couple people that are older. And the parking lot was like gravel and they have trouble walking, so I paved the parking lot at the church. Just little things like that.

RAZ: I mean, a lot of people might say, Darvin, if you win eight and half million bucks, you don't ever have to work another day in your life.

Mr. MOON: Don't have to, but I'm going to.

RAZ: You're going to go right back to work.

Mr. MOON: Right back to work, yeah. No doubt about it.

RAZ: What about your wife, Wendy?

Mr. MOON: She works every day.

RAZ: So even if you come home with a big cash prize, she'll still go to work.

Mr. MOON: That's my plan.

RAZ: Hmm. Is that her plan?

Mr. MOON: I don't know what her plan is...

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. MOON: ...but that's my plan. She still works.

RAZ: Do you have any ritual that you do before you play, you know, for good luck?

Mr. MOON: No.

RAZ: So you don't wear, like, the same socks for a week?

Mr. MOON: No. I wear the same hat, other than that, I change clothes.

RAZ: What kind of hat is it?

Mr. MOON: A New Orleans Saints.

RAZ: New Orleans Saints, so you're a Saints fan?

Mr. MOON: Yeah. They're going to win the Super Bowl. I'm going to win the World Series of Poker. Me and the New Orleans Saints will have a little party, and we'll go out and have a steak or something.

RAZ: And I'm assuming that you'll buy for everybody.

Mr. MOON: I think if they win the damn Super Bowl, they ought to be buying for me, you know? I think their salaries are a little above mine.

(Soundbite of laughter)

RAZ: That's Darvin Moon. I spoke with him before he left for Las Vegas from the site of his logging operation in Oakland, Maryland. He went into today's World Series of Poker's final table as its chip leader.

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