'Woody' Moore Returns to WSOP Felt After Boycott, Runs Deep in Seniors
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When the best and most consistent grinders following the World Series of Poker Circuit convene in Cherokee in August for the $1 million Global Casino Championship, a very familiar face will be missing.
For the second time in the nine-year history of the season-ending event — formerly called the National Championship — Charles "Woody" Moore won't be seated among the 125 or so qualifiers.
One glance at Moore's WSOP profile, and it's not hard to see why: Moore didn't record a single cash in the 2018-19 Circuit season.
For some players, that might not be that unusual. Maybe they moved up to higher-stakes events. Maybe they spent a ton of time on something away from the felt. Maybe they went on an incredible run of bad luck.
However, this is the man who sits in third place — recently passed by Chris Conrad — on the all-time Circuit cashes list with 104. He's arguably the most consistent presence on the nationwide tour. No, what set Moore on a year away from the Circuit was the way he missed out on the 2018 seat.
"I was, like, on a little protest," Moore said as he headed out for dinner break of the $1,000 Seniors Event at the WSOP, down to the last 60 or so runners in the massive field.
A Year's Hiatus
Rewind to the months leading up to the 2018 Global Casino Championship, eventually won by Warren Sheaves. As the Circuit season headed into its final weekend, mid-way through the New Orleans stop, Moore sat squarely on the bubble in 43rd with 175 points.
According to Moore, he was in 39th at the start of the stop. He said it was unusual for even five people to be passed up in the last stop, so he wasn't worried about losing his seat heading in. While New Orleans used to be an easy trip for Moore, he had relocated to Las Vegas and didn't want to fly across the country if it wasn't necessary.
"They were smoking marijuana up in their rooms in a Harrah's property some place and they got 86'd from the tournament."
Unfortunately for Moore, a flurry of points chasers descended upon the Big Easy and relegated him to the stone bubble: 51st place with 50 players earning seats.
Despite the misstep on Moore's part, he maintains he should have still been awarded a seat.
"Two people got 86'd," Moore said. "They were smoking marijuana up in their rooms in a Harrah's property some place and they got 86'd from the tournament. In any other sports or event, they always bump up the people next up.
"Three years prior to that, two people were at North Carolina. They got in a fight in a bar there over one man's wife and they both got 86'd. They called two of my friends up from Atlanta who were 51st and 52nd and they bumped them up."
PokerNews was unable to verify Moore's claims and reached out to the WSOP for comment on the matter.
Vice president of corporate communications, Seth Palansky, said it's company policy that the players who qualified simply get increased equity if someone who earned a seat can't make it, for whatever reason.
"No one did anything to hurt Woody Moore," he said. "He’s a heck of a person and one of the most beloved WSOP Circuit players of all time. He may not like the rule but we owe it to those that earned qualification to enforce the rules we post at start of season."
Moore admitted that when he spoke with WSOP Vice President Jack Effel on the phone, he was told much the same. Disgruntled with the situation nonetheless and feeling he'd been robbed of a seat worth thousands of dollars in equity, Moore decided to sit out the subsequent 2018-19 season.
"It really upset me," he said.
Taking It to the Seniors
Now, Moore says he's "over it."
After his year of protest, he returned to the WSOP felt, lured in by the promise of an event for the ages in the Big Fifty. Moore said he soft bubbled that one about 100 spots from the money. He did the same in the $600 Deepstack about 25 from the money.
However, he's had better luck in subsequent events battling against his fellow seniors.
Moore said he fired seniors events at Venetian and Wynn, cashing them both. Now, he's in the biggest of them all, Event #32: $1,000 Seniors No-Limit Hold'em.
With 5,916 players, the doozy of an event boasts a massive prize pool over $5.3 million. Moore finds himself squarely in contention with less than one percent of the field remaining, on the fringes of a top-10 stack at the time of writing.
While Moore has more than $1.6 million in tournament cashes and has established himself as a force on the Circuit, his resume is missing a bracelet. In fact, his closest call came way back in 1995 with a third-place finish in Event #1: $1,500 Limit Hold'em.
Taking down the Seniors would be the perfect way to fill that void, along with netting him $662,594 to break his personal best cash record, from third place in the 2008 L.A. Poker Classic ($625,630).
"A seniors event, it would be the ultimate...because I'm a senior," Moore said with a grin.
Follow all the updates on PokerNews as the Seniors Event plays down to a winner.
