Chris Ferguson – Poker Legend & Great Businessman
Chris Ferguson is one of the oldest most famous active poker players in the world. Up to this date, he is still massively involved in the poker and online poker industries. He also became quite popular with the poker scandal in 2011. We will tell you everything you need to know about Chris Ferguson in this article.
Chris’s Early Life
We can say that Chris Ferguson is a super talented man whose career started in the early 90s. But the popularity and the real fame and money came after 2000. He was born in the City of Angels (LA) in 1963. Both of his parents are mathematicians, and both have a doctoral degree in the field. His father is a probability and game theory teacher at the University of California, LA (UCLA).
Ever since he was a kid, he was strong at math, and of course, he followed the steps of his parents by earning a Bachelor degree and a PhD in Computer Science and more specifically virtual network algorithms. It is known that Chris Ferguson was into poker even before the era of online gambling. Back in 1989, he was playing poker for money on mIRC.
| Full Name | Christopher Phillip Ferguson |
| Born On | April 11, 1963 |
| Nickname | Jesus |
| Lives in | Pacific Palisades, California |
| Number of Career Titles | 21 |
| WSOP Bracelets | 6 |
| Net Worth | $80 Million |
In 1994 Chris Ferguson started earning the reputation of a skilful poker player. Shortly after he was already part of the WSOP tournament and even he won first place in 2000. In the next paragraph, we will tell you more about his professional achievements and prizes he won through these years. It is a fact that his background and math skills are reflecting over his playing style and practical gameplay.
How Chris Ferguson Got His Nickname – Jesus
When you look at Chris Ferguson, you can easily recognise why his nickname is “Jesus”. If you stay around him, you will find out that he is quite a person who does not show much emotion. The hat, the beard and the hair make a strong impression when you see him. At the very beginning, the outlook was also a disguise, so he could look older than he was.
Chris Ferguson Poker Player
As we mentioned, in college, Chris Ferguson played at online rooms for money through the most famous online chat platform mIRC. The real fame and money came after he started participating in Californian poker tournaments in 1994. In 1995 he made his way to the World Poker Series for the first time. Four years later, in 2000, he won not one but two bracelets.
He became the champion of the year by beating the famous poker player T.J. Cloutier. This was the moment when he became famous across the whole poker society. The total amount he acquired from this event was over $1.5 million. Perhaps the exclusive poker fans of the best online UK casino sites should consider attending the live events, too, from time to time. Anyway, in 2004, luck was not on his side, but despite that, he finished in 26th place at the World Series of Poker’s main event.
In 2005 on the National Heads-up Poker Tournament Chris Ferguson again made his way to the final, but this time he took the second place in the tournament. In 2006, he showed an amazing performance, but unfortunately, he took second place again. In 2008, we guess that luck was not on his side, so he finished in 3rd place.
The following years were quite challenging for Chris Ferguson, especially after crime allegations in 2011 about which we will elaborate later. In 2016 he finally returned to the world’s poker scene, but he couldn’t take any significant prizes. In that year, his best achievement was 4th place on World Poker Series on June 23, 2016. Take a look at all of his achievements and right after we will tell you most about the latest one.
| Tournament | Year | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| $2,500 Seven-Card Stud | 2000 | $151,000 |
| $10,000 No Limit Texas Hold ’em World Championship | 2000 | $1,500,000 |
| $1,500 Omaha Hi-Lo Split Eight or Better | 2001 | $164,735 |
| $2,000 Omaha Hi-Lo Split Eight or Better | 2003 | $123,680 |
| $2,000 1/2 Limit Hold’em – 1/2 Seven Card Stud | 2003 | $66,220 |
| €1,650 Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better | 2017 | €39,289 |
As you probably saw in the table above, he got his last WSOP bracelet (his sixth one) in 2017. He also set a new record of 23 cashes. Also, he took the award for WSOP Player of the Year. In the last several years he is participating in many poker tournaments not only in America but in Europe too.
Due to the extensive online gambling development in the previous decade, you can also see him on some large international online tournaments. At that time, the rough estimation of all his winnings was over $8 million in prizes. The popularity of online gambling is growing every day, and some say this is the future.
Full Tilt Poker Scandal in 2011
You may know that Chris Ferguson was one of Full Tilt Poker owners, one of the first global poker platforms with millions of players/users. The company, later on, was acquired by PokerStars. Chris Ferguson’s downfall was in April 2011 when the US Department of Justice seized control over the platform and accused all the board members according to the Gambling Act of 2006.
It became clear that Full Tilt Poker did not have the money to pay back all of its users if needed. Or with other words, the typical online casinos Ponzi scheme where you pay your old users with the money of your new users and so on. Chris Ferguson stated that he was not aware of everything that was happening. Several years after apologising to society, he lost all of his money to cover the compensations to all Full Tilt Poker users. He returned to the WSOP and won another title in 2017.
We won’t lie to you, the poker society was quite harsh towards Chris Ferguson, at least in the beginning. In 2018, he posted a video that you can see below, where he apologises for the outcome and the fact that they could not pay back all of their users immediately.
FAQ
Reading is not like memorising, and for that reason, we have gathered the most frequently asked questions about Chris Ferguson and his poker career. If you seek to explore the detailed answer to all the questions, click on the jump button and you will appear right in front of you.
