Chris Moneymaker has told the story of his 2003 WSOP Main Event run countless times, but every so often details resurface that reminds the poker world just how improbable and fragile the “Moneymaker Effect” really was.

In a recent interview with Paul Seaton for Tight Poker, the former world champion confirmed once again that he never intended to enter the online satellite that ultimately launched the poker boom. In fact, as he puts it bluntly: the entire thing began with a mistake.

According to Moneymaker, the $86 satellite that funneled him into a $630 qualifier and later the WSOP Main Event itself was not even supposed to be a satellite at all.

“I thought it was a cash sit and go. I had no idea it was a satellite to another satellite to the Main Event of the World Series of Poker,” he told Seaton. “I never would have played. I had like $200 bucks in my account at the time. Me putting $80 bucks into a satellite for a satellite for a Main Event was ridiculously stupid. An $80 sit and go was half my bankroll.”

It was not just an accidental registration, it was a decision he immediately regretted. When he realized he had entered a satellite chain rather than a simple sit and go, frustration set in.

“It was a mistake to register the satellite. It was not something I was doing on purpose,” Moneymaker said. “I found out it was a satellite to the $600 tournament that weekend, and I was a little bit frustrated.”

But fate and a little run-good carried him through. Moneymaker won the first satellite, advancing to the $630 qualifier with around 69 entrants and three WSOP Main Event seats. Yet winning one of those seats was the last thing he wanted.

Back in 2003, PokerStars’ WSOP seats were non-transferable. If you won it, you had to play the Main Event or forfeit it. For a recreational player with a $200 online bankroll and a job back home, that was a nightmare. Fourth place in the $630 satellite, however, paid $8,000 in cash — the exact amount Moneymaker owed in credit card debt.

So he tried to lose.

“I wanted to get 4th place,” he admitted. “We got down pretty deep and I started trying to dump some chips to get 4th place.”

If not for a timely intervention, the poker world may never have heard his name. As Moneymaker tells it, a friend noticed what he was doing and immediately called him. The friend offered to buy half his action if he won the Main Event seat, a deal that suddenly made the seat worthwhile in Moneymaker’s eyes, so he agreed. (Ironically, it later emerged that the friend never actually bought the piece because he did not have the money.)

Meanwhile, another player at the table was also gunning for fourth place. In the chaos of both players trying to ladder down, Moneymaker ended up finishing in the top three and winning the Main Event seat, anyway. And with that, an accidental click, a mistaken registration, and a reluctant decision to play the Main Event set the stage for one of the most transformative victories in poker history.

Had he succeeded in chip-dumping his way to 4th, the 2003 WSOP might have crowned an entirely different champion and the online poker boom that followed may never have happened.

This is not a retrofitted tale either; Moneymaker has told the same story before in interviews with PokerStars, ESPN and Norman Chad.

Two decades later, Moneymaker’s story remains the ultimate reminder: poker history can hinge on a single misclick.