Most online poker players and those who play in the more traditional brick-and-mortar format are well aware of the Chris Moneymaker story. Making the proverbial rags to riches tale a reality, the 27-year-old accountant claimed his entry for the main event of the 2003 World Series of Poker by winning a $39 satellite tournament hosted by the online poker room PokerStars. He ended up besting the entire field of 839 players, becoming the first WSOP champion ever to win his entry through an online tournament. Each year the WSOP is the largest brick-and-mortar poker tournament offered, and was Moneymaker’s first live poker tournament ever.

In a near duplication of the accomplishment which awarded Moneymaker $2.5 million for his 2003 WSOP championship, online grinder ‘Maratik’ recently outlasted 1,825 players in the $5,200 buy-in PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker 2012 main event. The WCOOP is the virtual equivalent of the brick-and-mortar WSOP, and Maratik outdid Moneymaker inasmuch as the low price he paid to enter the qualifier that he eventually won which gave him his seat in the WCOOP main event. A mere 40 Frequent Player Points was all that was required for the low-stakes Russian grinder to enter the qualifier, and by the second day of the two-day tournament only 245 players remained.

225 of those would cash, among them the 2010 WSOP Main Event champ Jonathan Duhamel and noted poker pro and online player Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier. Just how has Maratik earned a reputation as a grinder? Grinders are known in the poker world as players who play for very low stakes for incredibly long periods of time, and poker statistic site Sharkscope.com has evidence that Maratik definitely fits that definition. Their data shows that Maratik prefers micro-stakes games, with over 27,000 sit-n-go’s or multi-table tournaments under his belt at an average stake of less than $3.

The Russian Maratik had to last more than 11 consecutive hours on day one, with a mind numbing 14 hours required on day two to take home the bracelet and $1,000,907.26. Definitely a rags to riches story for the online poker community, Maratik wound up heads-up against Ryan “TheCart3r” Carter, with the chip count painting a pretty dreary picture for the eventual champion. Carter began heads-up play with 29,861,560 chips as opposed to only 6,638,440 for Maratik, for what was almost a nearly insurmountable 5 to 1 margin. However, on the 11th hand of heads-up play both players’ chips wound up all in the pot.

Carter re-raised Maratik’s button min-raise to 800,000 chips from the big blind, and Maratik quickly called. The flop came King of hearts, 10 of diamonds, 8 of diamonds. Carter then bet 656,000, Maratik doubled that to 1,312,000, and Carter called. Fourth Street showed the 2 of diamonds which was checked by both players, and the Queen of hearts came on the river. Carter fired out a bet of 2,132,000, which was immediately met by an all in raise of 5,038,440 by Maratik. Carter showed the King of clubs and the King of spades for a flopped set, and Maratik rolled over the Queen of diamonds and Jack of diamonds for the Queen high flush, and the virtual world’s equivalent of Chris Moneymaker seized control of the match from there.

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