Chris Moneymaker quotes:

My favourite movie right now is probably 'Hitch', a Will Smith thing.

If you see me playing a $1/$2 no-limit on PokerStars, I'm probably experimenting with something, trying something new seeing how it works.

But I want people to understand that poker's not all glamorous, it's not all being on TV and making tons of money. It's a hard life. It's a lot of travel. It's a lot of weird hours.

I always pretend like I'm nervous no matter what. I try to fall asleep.

I'm the first person in my family to play poker.

I don't like the way I ever appear on TV.

I'm comfortable with the hold 'em, Omaha and stud high-low. But the other two games aren't my strongest games. I'm not comfortable at all with razz or stud.

World Class players can lay down the toughest hands and play any two cards at any time without fear. Their reads are impeccable.

The competition has improved tremendously. In 2003, I could teach a guy how to play poker in an hour and he could win some money. Today, it would take days. The game has gotten so much tougher. So I will spend my time with my family and play when I can.

Never in a million years did I think the sport of poker would blow up the way it did.

You have it or you don't... I think I have it.

Although I have to say, it's become a lot harder for me since I won the world series because everyone wants to beat me. For example, bluffing is really tough now, because there's always someone who calls me on the off-chance that they'll then be able to say they read a world champion's bluff.

I actually do quite well in Omaha. It's one of my better games. I love pot-limit Omaha and Omaha high-low. I do quite well in them. If I play in a casino, I usually play some kind of mixed game with Omaha and hold 'em.

Not having the online game has made it more difficult. There are a lot of young and upcoming players in poker. But you don't get to see them because TV has sort of been taken away.

When I was broke, no one ever offered to buy me a beer. Now that I have quite a bit of money, everybody tries to buy me beers. Where were all these people back when I was in college and broke?

My biggest fear was public speaking, and then having everyone know who I was, it was definitely weird at first. When I first won, it was definitely a culture shock, it was something I wasn't quite ready for.

If you're a poker player and you show up at a casino at 8 a.m., you're going to be by yourself or with some people that are rocks and just don't give you any action.

When I had a full-time job, I really wasn't that busy, but now I'm really busy. I guess that's a good thing.

I've talked a lot with Greg Raymer and Joe Hachem. Being on Team PokerStars with them has helped me out quite a bit. I've traveled around Europe playing with them. I've also talked with Robert Williamson here and there and Jim Worth. So I've had some good people to talk to and bounce ideas off of.

I used to sports gamble a lot and I was getting killed on that but then I found poker and really enjoyed it. But it was a hobby more than anything else. I played it every day but only on pretty small stakes.

The beautiful thing about poker is that everybody thinks they can play.

For the most part, I get to do what I want to do. If I want to play poker, I can. If I don't want to play poker, I don't have to.

Poker is meant to be enjoyed.

Other than that and the fact that I don't have to work any more my life hasn't changed a bit.