Following the days of the Moneymaker Boom in the mid-2000s, online poker exploded into a global phenomenon, with thousands of young players taking their shot at the game.
Platforms like Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars were offering regular online games with stakes going up to $500/$1,000, with millions of dollars changing hands on a daily basis.
The biggest poker games of this era weren’t played in Las Vegas or Monte Carlo, but online, where well-known pros like Gus Hansen, Phil Ivey, and Patrik Antonius butted heads with young prodigies like Tom Dwan.
And just as the poker world had established an equilibrium of sorts, where the best pros were all known to the fans, a brand-new name emerged at the tables and took the world by storm.