Darvin Moon hasn't been a poker player for very long, but there has always been a part of him that understood the basic principles of risk.
The 45-year-old Oakland resident, who will sit down at the final table of the World Series of Poker today as the overall chip leader, has been a logger his entire life. And as any good logger can tell you, those who don't understand which risks to take, and which not to take, when cutting down trees don't get many second chances. Even the good ones get battered and banged up. Moon has had his arm crushed, his leg broken, his knee busted, and he has dodged death more times than he can really recall. But he wouldn't give it up even if he could afford to walk away.
"I love the freedom of it," Moon said. "You're out in the woods, away from everything and everyone, and there is nothing routine about it. Every tree you cut is different. It's unique."
Kind of the same way every hand in poker is unique?
"In a way, they're the same," Moon said. "If you're cutting trees and you mess up, you're gone. In poker, if you play the wrong hand, you're gone. The difference is, if you mess up in poker, you don't get hauled out of there in a body bag."
Moon's story of how he made it to the final table of poker's biggest event - he is one of nine players left vying for the $8.55 million first-place prize - is as refreshing as his candor. And the fact that he's the chip leader, with a $59 million stack in front of him, more than a third of the overall chips, becomes even more remarkable when you hear how it all began: at a tiny tournament with a $140 entry fee in West Virginia.
Unlike some of the recent surprises at the main event's final table, Moon didn't hone his poker skills online or catch the fever for Texas hold 'em because of a Hollywood movie. He simply played the game with his softball buddies on nights and weekends, especially after he got a little too heavy and a little too slow to field the ball as he once did. At most, the winner of his twice-weekly game would pocket a few hundred dollars. And, he'll be the first to tell you, it wasn't like he was cleaning up in those friendly gatherings.
"I'm probably the third-best player [in my regular game]," Moon said. "Actually, I might be the fourth. My brother is pretty good, but he can get a little rattled sometimes."
