Moneymaker Finally Wins Mini Phil’s Thrill!

Moneymaker Finally Wins Mini Phil’s Thrill!
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Vasilisa Zyryanova Blog Content Editor
Fact Checked: PokerListings
  • Updated: August 18, 2026
  • Read time: 2 min

After two victories in the big “Phils”, the WSOP legend and ACR Poker ambassador Chris Moneymaker could still say “There ain’t nothing mini about me” — but since August 2026 he can’t say it anymore, because he finally managed to win the first “mini” tournament in his career.

Here is how it went down.

How Phil Finally Won a Mini Phil’s Thrill

From July 2025 to August 2026, the most important poker player in history actively participated in tournaments named after WPN CEO Phil Nagy.

Moneymaker has made five $10,300 Phil’s Thrill finals, including winning two in September 2025 and May 2026.

While he has had success in the big Phils, Moneymaker only managed to score once in the mini version, finishing in 3rd place with a payout of $24.8k in December 2025.

For seven months after that, the Mini Phil’s Thrill resisted Moneymaker’s charms until August 2nd, 2026, when he finally managed to triumph here too. Moneymaker was able to conquer $2,650 Mini Phil’s Thrill with a 75-entry field and prize pool of $187,500.

He entered the final table as the chip leader with 85 BB in his stack, but soon lost a decent portion of his chips in several unlucky hands — and began to play it safe, trying not only to accumulate chips, but also to go as deep as possible in the final table.

That tactic worked — in 1.5 hours he reached heads-up with David “Down2Muck” Coleman, having a slight advantage in the stack — and then luck smiled on him one last time, allowing Moneymaker to win the deciding coin flip.

Mini Phil's Thrill
Heads Up at Mini Phil’s Thrill

The win earned him $45,000 — a mini-prize compared to his usual ACR Poker winnings but still a nice sum.

Mini Phil's Thrill Results
Mini Phil’s Thrill Results

He was also able to recoup some of his current losses, reducing them to $155K.

Chris Moneymaker Profit History
Chris Moneymaker Profit History

Moneymaker responded to his victory with his characteristic humor, writing on X/Twitter:

Chris Moneymaker via X/Twitter

I am mini me

The amazing thing about Chris Moneymaker is that unlike other players associated with poker brands, he always makes the poker community happy with his winnings.

Moreover, players of all categories are happy for him — from fellow ambassadors like Jeff Boski, who posted: “Nice win Chris Moneymaker” to hobby players who are simply glad that the legend still has it.

And, of course, ACR Poker also publicly congratulates him as they did here too with a tweet: