[VARoadstter]

It's probably not a big stretch to consider the WSOP as a mini-lottery. Since there were approximately 5000 entries (for simplicity's sake), then the base odds of picking a winner at random is 1/5000.

The question becomes how much value can you place on experience. I can't remember where I read it but a top pro (I think it was Hellmuth but really can't recall) said that he could consider his edge in experience worth about 5x the buyin. So for a given top pro they are still staring at a 1/1000 chance of winning. Tournies typically pay out the top 10% of finishers, so even making the money would only be even money.

On the whole I would simply say that even though there has been a rash of unknown winners this is actually the more likely result since they simply outnumber the top players by a huge margin. Does winning the WSOP in 2003 mean Moneymaker is as good as the top pros? Hardly - the guy is a stiff. Whatever talent he had was aided in large measure by chance events.