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In 2003 an accountant named Chris Moneymaker joined an $86 poker tournament by accident, then tried to lose it on purpose. He failed at both and won $2.5 million. In the video below he tells it himself: "I couldn't sell the seat and 4th place was $8,000 in cash. I tried to get 4th place. That was my goal. I wanted to get 4th place. We got down pretty deep and I started trying to dump some chips to get 4th place." He had meant to join a cash game. He says he had about $200 in his account at the time, and only worked out afterwards that he had registered for a satellite into a satellite into the World Series of Poker. He says he never would have played if he had known. That $86 game fed into a $630 one with 69 players and three seats to the Main Event. Three seats meant fourth place was the first losing position, and it paid $8,000 in cash. He wanted the cash. The seat couldn't be sold or transferred in 2003 — you played it or you burned it. So he started throwing chips away. While he was doing it, a friend noticed, called him, and bought half his action. He couldn't lose. He got a seat. He had never played a live tournament in his life. In Vegas he knocked out Phil Ivey without knowing who Ivey was — he only knew three players in the world. Then he beat Sam Farha heads-up, going all in on the river with King high and nothing else. $86 became $2,500,000. That is 29,070 times his money. He was aiming for $8,000. He missed by $2,492,000. He calls the whole run a lottery ticket. But nobody bluffs Sam Farha off a pair with King high by accident. So which is it — was he lucky, or is he a genius?