Poker News Daily: What does it feel like to be a member of the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event November Nine?
Moon: It’s a privilege. It’s overwhelming. I never thought I would be here, but I’m here and I’ll make the most of it.
PND: Did you ever think it was possible to make it as far as you did?
Moon: Myself, no, but I told everyone I would. I had bets with people that I would make it. I had side bets that I would make at least $3 million. I was only betting around $10, so it was all in fun. Who ever would have thought that I could get there?
PND: Did you want to play the tournament out in July?
Moon: No. If we wouldn’t have had a break, I was done. If I had to keep playing, you’d have seen me play altogether differently. I was exhausted and mentally drained. When we went on lunch break on Day 8, I went to my room, took a shower, and went to bed. I was guaranteed $800,000 and I was done. My wife said to get up if you want to play and keep sleeping if you don’t want to. I got up and went down to finish playing.
PND: Has you life been considerably different since making the November Nine?
Moon: This definitely makes life different. Everywhere I go, people are asking questions. You can’t go anywhere that someone doesn’t know you. I like to stay back, sit back, listen, and not be the thing going on, so this is not normal for me. As far as my lifestyle goes, it hasn’t changed. I still get up and go to the woods and work. My wife still works. That’s all still the same.
PND: Talk about some of your competitors like Phil Ivey and Jeff Shulman, who represent some of the top players poker has to offer.
Moon: Phil Ivey is rated as the number one player in the world in everyone’s eyes. I played against Jeff for three days and when I wasn’t in a hand, I tried to play the game and see if I could figure out what he had. I was never even close to what he had. As of right now, I don’t have anything at all on him, so he’s tough.
Everyone keeps asking me about Ivey and Shulman and overlooking Eric Buchman. I haven’t played against him much, but it looks to me like he’s tough. I don’t think he won a big pot to put him where he’s at; he just kept winning smaller pots. If I hadn’t won big pots against Billy Kopp and Jordan Smith, I think Buchman would have had me out-chipped. It’s luck that I am where I am. Buchman is the one I’m worried about the most.
I’m not going to double up anyone. If I’m going into a pot, I’m going to be ahead. All eight of them have more experience than I do and are better players than I am.
PND: Antoine Saout and James Akenhead both made the final table of the WSOP Europe Main Event. How have you been preparing for November? Have you played live or online?
Moon: I won’t do anything online. I’m an outdoors person and I’m not sitting in front of a computer screen for five minutes or five hours. We’ve played a lot of charity tournaments since I got back. I’ve been over to Wheeling and played in three or four tournaments there. We usually play a couple of tournaments per week here at home on Friday and Saturday nights. I’ve been playing every week.
I leave tomorrow to go hunting in Wyoming. We’re going to drive out, which takes me three days to do. We’ve got it set up so that every stop we make has a casino. Where I’m going, there’s no phone service, so no one will be able to get a hold of me for three weeks, which will be pretty good.
PND: Will you be disappointed if you don’t win or is just being part of the November Nine enough?
Moon: I would be disappointed if I didn’t win. I’m going to try my best to win. If I win, I win and if I don’t, I don’t. They’re going to have to earn my chips and they’re going to have their work cut out to get them. Someone else could end up with the other 140 million chips in play, but they’ll still have to earn mine. I’m not going to give them away. If I go into a pot, I’m going to have a good hand. If I try to run over the table, the next thing you know, I’ve doubled people up and will end up short-stacked in ninth place. If I have my figures right, I can blind down and come in fourth, but I’m there to win it and that’s what all of the other 6,493 players entered for too.
PND: How’d you get started in poker?
Moon: Eight or ten of my friends and I played softball together and got too old and had some broken bones, so we decided to start playing poker tournaments. That’s how I got started. It’s all charity stuff we do, like raising money for fire departments or people who need medical treatment. We usually take $10 off everyone’s $30 buy-in, so 33% goes to charity and 66% goes to the prize pool. We always try to pay 10% of the field and have 70 or 80 people in every tournament.