Darvin Moon Biography

The November Nine is “shooting for the moon,” Darvin Moon that is. Darvin Moon is the chip leader heading into the final table of the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event. After eight days of play, Moon head’s into the final table with 58,930,000 in chips. While Phil Ivey, Jeff Shulman, and Eric Buchman are the big name players, Moon is trying to pull off a feat similar to what Chris Moneymaker did in 2003 by coming out of nowhere to win the Main Event.

Darvin Moon is from the small town of Oakland, Md. In his everyday life, Moon is a logger and owns his own logging company. After making the November Nine, Moon stated, “I’ll go back to work in the woods, and when it’s time to come out, I’ll come out here.”

In an interview with Cardplayer.com, Moon stated that he has received most of his poker experience via playing in small buy-in tournaments around Oakland, Md. When asked what the average buy-in for these events were, he stated that they were around $35 and averaged around 90 players. Moon won his entry into the WSOP Main Event via a live satellite held at Wheeling Island Casino in Wheeling, WV. The $130 satellite paid 9 spots and so far, Moon has parlayed his satellite into over $1.2 Million.

Moon has admitted that he has ran extremely well in making the November Nine final table. He in fact stated that “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.”

An example of how well he ran is the elimination of Jordan Smith. Smith moved in with pocket aces and Moon called with pocket eights. An eight on the flop ended Smith’s Main Event run. When asked about this scenario, Moon told USA Today, “My cards ran like that the whole tournament. I didn’t hardly have to play poker. I mean, I didn’t have to gamble at all. I never had my chip stack all in at any time the whole tournament. It’s great to have cards that run like that for eight days.”

This is Moon’s first WSOP Main Event, and in fact, this is Moon’s first trip to Vegas. He admitted that everything outside of the play at the table has been a bit overwhelming. Moon has no professional or online tournament record. Amazingly, this recreational player could vault into the top 10 all-time in winnings if he were able to pull off the win.

Of course, Phil Ivey and seven other players stand in Moon’s way. Will Moon be able to outshine everyone else or will someone successfully lasso the Moon? We will find out in a little over 3 months.