Best Year/ Moments for Poker?

Here is an interesting topic of discussion !
so i wanna hear what everyone thinks the most influential year or moment was in poker history. Something that made poker more popular to the avg. Joe. i have a feeling i know what most people will say, it seems obvious that moneymaker winning the main event sparked the poker boom. But for me it was the year after, when jamie gold won it. To me, that years main event was so grand. the amount of players, prizepool and star studded storylines made poker jump to the next level. i fell in love with it this year.
so lets hear it. answers can vary from a year, a winner, a televised moment, people i mean anything that comes to mind

just want to add. also for me, the commentators for the wsop norman chad and lon mcharen make it so fun. they are part of the reason we love the game. also players like ivey hellmuth and negreanu turn poker into a sport with legendary players in it. if i got to sit at a table with them 3 it would be like playing football with brady and basketball with jordan

everytime hellmuth goes on a rant on how bad someone is

I think Martin Jacobson`s victory at WSOP, where he got 10M

For me it was a surprise when a Russian guy won $ 1m in a sunday million tournament. Before that he played microlimits

I,m sure in Russia it was the year, when Ivan Demidov finished 2nd in the main event of WSOP. I,m not sure when it was, looks like about 9 years ago, but this was the moment, when everybody starts to talking about that and poker becomes more popular in our country. Some TV channels starting to stream this events really often, so this was the moment, when the game comes to our lifes.

Chris Moneymaker gave online poker a major boost as suddenly everyone dreamed of starting their poker career on the internet. So yes, his era was an important one.

The person who made poker the most popular in the history of poker has to be Daniel Negreanu. His most successful year was 2004 and that's also when he became the face of poker.

The best year for poker has not yet come, or maybe this year. Personally, I still have not won anything, but the mind has increased

There isnt a special moment of the year to play poker haha.

You just play it whenever you want to have fun!

Topic really interesting, I will put two perspectives one of my view of the sport and a personal (my most important year in poker )

In the world context in a time that was knowing poker and with few news (without internet) I was impressed by Stu Ugar, his dominant return and sad end.

My personal year was 2014 with good online campaigns and live events

There is no specific moment of the year when you can win

For me the saddest year is the year when we have the country banned live poker,and the most famous year is yet to come this year will come back when allow live poker in our country

Yeah the easy answer is probably still the best one: 2003 with Chris Moneymaker winning the Main Event and the birth of the Moneymaker Effect.

Jamie Gold winning the biggest main event ever at the peak of the poker boom has to be right up there too. That wasn't the next year though, that was in 2006.

Locally, Salty Joe Hachem winning the Main Event in 2005 was a pretty good year for expanding the game in Australia.