Pretty donkish statement. Maybe short term, but long term it's 100% skill. Until I started visiting poker forums, I had no idea how much crap you need to know.
How many of the pure skill players made it to the final table this year, what about last year? Of any of the guys on the final table this year, how many started playing poker in the last two-three years?
1. Jerry Yang $ 8,250,000
2. Tuan Lam $ 4,840,981
3. Raymond Rahme $ 3,048,025
4. Alexander Kravchenko $ 1,852,721
5. Jon Kalmar $ 1,255,069
6. Hevad (RainKhan) Khan $ 956,243
7. Lee Childs $ 705,229
8. Lee Watkinson $ 585,699
9. Phillip Hilm $ 525,934
10. Steve Garfinkle $ 476,926
Lee Watkinson was the most experienced and dare I say most skilled person on that table. He has cashed in 10 seperate tournaments back to 2004!
If you want to play in the WSOP as a goal, then great dude, I don't blame you. I'm sure it will be hella fun and I hope to get there too, but I'll be damned if I'm throwing down 10k bones for it. That is just ridiculous. Either you have too much money or your ego is HUGE to think you can get through all these people and walk right into the final table based on skill.
Look at Moneymaker, that is all you need to see. The guy made two good plays the entire tournament. The rest was dumb ass luck.
I plan on playing in the 200 dollar buyins at harrah's this year to roll into the tournament. This is by far your best shot. It gives you table/tourney experience and it doesn't cost nearly as much. At least at these tournaments there are normally only ~80ish people to play. If you want to meet up, let me know. I'm going to start getting my game ready again. It is so much different on the table.