WSOP - $2500 6 max...

[Talking Poker]

Now hold on a secon here. No one asked if Moneymaker had any skill. The question was "Did he get VERY lucky," to which the answer was YES. Now ask me if Raymer or Hachem got very lucky and again I'll say YES. You HAVE to get lucky to take down one of these huge field tourneys. That's all there is too it.

People always look at luck as sucking out, but it also comes in the form of not being sucked out on. If you get your money is as a 4:1 favorite 10 times in a tourney, YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO LOSE 2 OF THOSE!!! So, if you manage to not go broke in that spot after 10 times, you got VERY lucky.

With all that said, yes, Chris Moneymaker is a decent player - he's much better now than he was at the 2003 WSOP (IMO, anyway). But quite frankly, if I had to rank myself against the champions in question, I'd rank us like this:

Raymer
Hachem
Me
Varkonyi
Moneymaker

I'm trying to be objective when I do this too. And I haven't seen Varkonyi play enough to know exactly where to rank him - he could certainly be ahead of me, but I decided to give myself the edge.