Dancing Canuck Wins Moneymaker Millions

Published: Monday, January 08, 2007 Online-Casinos.com

BALLET DANCING CANUCK WINS MONEYMAKER MILLIONS

Following in the master's footsteps

The Pokerstars.com Moneymaker Millionaire poker extravaganza culminated in the final table over the weekend, held at the Atlantis Resort and Casino in the Bahamas, where the Chris Moneymaker legend of an unknown player beating formidable opposition was extended by another unfamiliar player who became a major winner.

An incredible 830 000 players started out in the PokerStars.com freeroll, with months of play finally culminating in a diverse field of 27 players, who were flown to the Atlantis Resort and Casino in the Bahamas for the televised finale. The number 27 was significant, being the age at which poker celebrity Chris Moneymaker, then an unknown, took the World Series of Poker crown in 2003.

This weekend an international group of finalists competed for a $1 million prize that included a 2007 Aston Martin DB9. 15 Americans, 10 Canadians, a German and one Slovenian player made the final cut in a tournament that took five months and three rounds to generate 27 finalists.

Former ballet dancer Quillan Nagel, a 30-year-old grad student from Ottawa, Canada, took down the final $850 000 pot and the shiny $150 000 car in the end - a surprise winner in a field as diverse as it was competitive. After a tough 16 hours of play, in a tense final heads-up Nagel eliminated Jerry Watterson of Florida, calling with K-5 on what turned out to be a $700 000 Q-T bluff to win the main prize.

The diversity of the Moneymaker 27 is showcased by some of the other final table participants: a busboy who won $44 000, a fruit-packing assembly line worker who won $72 000 and Steve Bazzo, a Subway employee from Michigan who finished fourth and took home $118 000.

There was no respite in sight for the winner after the tense final, however - he was on his way back to Ottawa to justify his Master's thesis in International Affairs last we heard.