Chris Moneymaker and his 2003 WSOP ME run

Unprecedented luck or hidden high skills that exploded at the right moment? Or maybe both?

roberto51 said:

Unprecedented luck or hidden high skills that exploded at the right moment? Or maybe both?

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Tremendous high level of skill, constant work on your game no matter how much you have won is key to success in poker and he is doing that to this day. Luck is a ‘very’ small factor in the long run of poker.

roberto51 said:

Unprecedented luck or hidden high skills that exploded at the right moment? Or maybe both?

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Ran well and some luck won the main that yr. He got better w practice even tho all the $ was gone in 2 1/2 yrs.

Winning large-field tournaments usually requires some combination of the two, and always requires luck -- even the best players in the world can't beat hundreds of opponents without winning a few flips

Moneymaker definitely ran well but I think he also played a fairly solid game for that earlier era.

I think both, but of course it wasn’t all luck because he had good results after the wsop.

Well he was certainly lucky with that one :

He opened the book of poker to the world.

very lucky for sure, the hand he beat Phil Ivey was absolute luck

cwdignus said:

very lucky for sure, the hand he beat Phil Ivey was absolute luck

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I agree but he still chases draws a tad too much....his full house was legit that year, but any card can hit a river..Luck for sure, but still way too overconfident imo chasing draws back in the day.

I think he will always be known as the worst world champ ever!