Chris Moorman and the Hunt for Wifi
While some spent their first days in Brazil looking for the best place for food, or the best place for drinks, Chris Moorman spent his first day in Brazil looking for the perfect wifi hotspot.
Moorman didn’t have a lot of time to find good food, or awesome nightlife because he was on a different quest; a quest for Wifi. What he wanted, was to play online poker.
“Yeah, it’s my first time in Brazil, even in South America so far. I actually haven’t seen that much because I’ve been playing online a bit,” Moorman explained. “But the first day I had to find internet because I reformatted my Mac. And I was trying to find an internet connection, so I could reload it back on. But the problem was I couldn’t do it in the hotel because I didn’t have an operating system. And it was one of those connections where you have to type in your name and your room number and that.”
It was an itch that Moorman just had to have scratched. So he ventured out into the unknown of São Paulo.
“So I went on a mission to find internet with a password around Brazil. And I found out that not many people speak English around here as well. Because I have quite a few Brazilian friends and they all speak good English, so I didn’t know that at all. So I went to a café and it was no good. Then I went to Starbucks and they sent me to Subway and in the end I was just getting nowhere with all these chains so I just decided to pop into a restaurant and luckily they had a wifi where I could type the password in, connect, download all the Mac operating system for two hours. I had an awesome dinner while I waited, but it was a bit of an adventure.”
And in the end it seemed to pay off for Moorman as well, as he was able to find quick success from hitting the tables online.
“I won a tournament, made a few final tables and had some deep runs,” He said. “It was kind of nice to play a bit online because I’m based in Vegas now so you can’t play online there. When I do get out of the country and go to these different stops and stuff I like to play online on the site, just because that’s where I grew up and where I came from. I still really like and enjoy playing it.”
Moorman is trying to turn that online success into live success here at 888Live São Paulo by playing in the R$2,500 High Roller, and he’s already had quite a bit of luck today, doubling his stack within the first few levels of play.
“I started off and lost a couple of hands but not many chips really,” Moorman explained. “And then I actually had a great situation. This guy raised about four and a half times the big blind from early position, so I kind of knew he had a big hand. He had been limping a lot. And I had 
in the big blind so obviously just call and try to hit a perfect flop. It came 
with a flush draw. I check-raised huge and he called. The turn came a 
. I wasn’t worried about him having an eight but I thought it might kill my action. He called me down on the turn and the river as well. It ended up being a huge pot. I have no idea what he had but yeah. Probably just an overpair or something.”
When it comes to the play, Moorman says the players here in São Paulo are surprisingly tough, solid opponents.
“It’s similar to other places but I’ve been playing online the last three or four days and it’s a lot more sort of reraising and squeezing and stuff like that,” he explained. “And here, quite a few times it’s been like five or six ways to the flop. Like someone opens, and someone calls. Then everyone else is calling behind kind of thing. But I actually was quite impressed with some of the play as well.”
But that hasn’t deterred Moorman. He says making these adjustments and adaptations is just part of the game, and it’s a part of his game that he’s very comfortable with.
“I like the challenge,” he said. “I’m always about adapting. I play online both the higher tournaments and the low ones. I have to adapt my game online anyway. So playing live you have to change it up even more. There’s definitely some situations today where I would’ve completely played them differently if it was online.”
Moorman is most looking forward to something not poker related at all though. While he’s in Brazil, Moorman is looking to meet one of his childhood heroes.
“I’m actually looking forward to meeting Denílson properly at the barbeque tomorrow,” Moorman said. “Like he was kind of a big hero of mine growing up. I’m a huge soccer, football fan. And I remember I used to buy him on the old football manager games. So I have to tell him that. But I haven’t played football for a while so I’m hoping he has a football at his house and we can have a little kick around and he can show me some of his skills. That should be fun.”
For the rest of the day, Moorman plays to play some solid, mistake free poker.
“Just to sort of play pretty steady and capitalize,” he said about his plans. “Hopefully somebody makes a big mistake. It’s quite a deep stacked tournament. We start with 50,000 chips and the blinds are still only 300/600. So there’s plenty of chips and people seem not afraid to put them in.”
Unfortunately for Moorman, he busted shortly after this interview and returning from break, bringing the field of 91 players down to 66. He’ll look to hop in the Main Event later on in the week, as registration for Day 1a has already closed.