MoneyMaker...Hmm lets see here!!!

Vote now. MoneyMaker lucky, skilled or was it a twist of both

Im not voting, i think he won with two good bluffs and thats the only reason he won. He's not getting away with it anymore though.

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i'm sorry, did you have pocket aces?

Very true..Im sorry i left off a bluff choice or something of that sort. I totaly agree and well when u c him on tv i dont belive he has been to another finalk tbl. and PokerSuperstars to bring him...hmm not worthy i feel

I think in order to win the WSOP you have to have a combination of skill and luck. We have to keep in mind that ESPN did not show every hand played in the tournament, rather just the ones that were exciting (i.e. the bluffs and the lucky ones). In order to get in a position to make the plays that he did, he must've played skilled poker earlier on in the event. It's impossible to win a tournament of the magnitude of the WSOP without skill that, quite frankly, 99% of players do not possess.

By the way, Moneymaker has made the final table of a WPT event since the WSOP. He finished 2nd to Phil Gordon in the 2004 Bay 101 Shooting Star. There's a $5,000 bounty on the "superstars" in that tourney, and he was the last one to be eliminated.

Obviously he isn't GREAT. he isn't one of the elite players. If the WSOP that year hadn't had the ratings it had and he won we probably wouldn't have heard from him again. But because he was the "ambassador" for the new wave of poker popularity -- in other words he was the first guy to win when poker was hitting its boom -- he gets put on Poker Superstars and all those other things. Definitely got lucky, but you have to have skill to win that thing.

You can't win any big tourney without luck, but I dont think you can get through a field that big on just luck either. He made some very good reads in the tourney (Im thinking specifically of the call against dutch boyd's all in with I believe a pair of 4s). Of course he got lucky at some points during the tourney, but anyone has to in order to survive through that big a field. Also, keep in mind, a lot of the pros went down early last year, I think it will be interesting to see how he does this year at wsop.

Well...

I know it was a long long time ago and i just joined and was watching the WSOP 2003 last night which made me think about it. I agree that if there wasnt luck poker wouldnt be poker. There is a big field and it os only getting bigger but the years. I heard recently thet there will be at least 5000 people bring 1st place up to 10 MILLION. Weither this is true or not that would still be sweet.

I think it was a combination of both luck and skill. It takes more then just luck to get through 800 plus people. Also, you won't see a lot of the pros going far in the WSOP anymore due to the fact that there are literally thousands of people coming to play in it in their hopes of becoming the next Greg Raymer/Chris Moneymaker.

I'm, not saying Chris Moneymaker has more skill than any other player, but he has to have a fair amount of skill to win the main event of the WSOP. No one can win that all on luck. But I am also not saying that he is a very good player. He's not in the top teir of poker players, but he is decent.

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