With Halloween approaching, former #1-ranked online superstar Chris Moorman recalls a hand that he still thinks about to this day.

Chris Moorman is without a doubt one of the best ever to take up online tournament poker. His resumé is the envy of many and is littered with success after success. With a World Series of Poker bracelet, countless online Triple Crowns, and over $16 million in online total earnings, the Englishman has done it all on the virtual felt.

But even in his illustrious poker career, the former #1-ranked PocketFiver has encountered a couple of hands that have kept him lying awake late at night.

Despite trying to stress the importance of not dwelling on hands in poker, a moment Moorman immediately looks back to is in the 2008 World Series of Poker Europe. Along with Johnny Lodden, the pair had been taking turns to bust the bubble with their big chip stacks, in this particular hand the big blind who was a short stack, decided to head to the bar to avoid being the unfortunate bubble.

“Johnny and I had big stacks, with myself around the 100 big blind mark and I looked down at pocket kings,” Moorman said. “I was more than happy to get all of the money in until I saw he had pocket aces. Even then I was still in shock as the situation was such a setup given the dynamics.”

Fortunately for Moorman, he still had a stack of around 20 big blinds after the big clash to try and lock up a min-cash in excess of $46k which would have been his biggest live cash ever by far at the time.

However, it would only be moments after that when Moorman would experience the hand that still haunts him to this day. It’s one, he admits, he should have approached far differently.

“An aggressive Scandinavian player opened for 3x, like everyone did back then, and I had pocket nines.”

With still four players away from the money, Moorman thought best to re-raise to half his stack to give off the vibe that he was holding a premium hand to get hands like ace-queen to fold.

“I was pretty sure this guy was raising wide enough to make it a profitable play, unfortunately, I misclick min re-raised which easily priced him in to see a flop.”

And as one can imagine in a spot like this, how does the flop come? Of course, all the overcards came down, an ace, a king and a queen to be precise. Still, with the villain in the hand having a wide range, Moorman decided to try and end the hand with a small continuation bet. This was then met with an almost instantaneous all-in shove, after a quick eye-roll, Moorman mucked his hand whose chip stack was now on life support.

“What a disaster,” he said. “After the hand I was left very short and ultimately lost a flip to not even cash the tournament after three and a half days play and having been chip leader on the bubble.

“It wasn’t until almost three years later that I was to beat that min-cash amount in a live tournament and I did use to wonder if I’d blown the best chance I’d ever have to win a big live tournament.”