No, I haven't won a seat (not yet) but I'm definitely going to be in Vegas this summer for the biggest poker party of the year.
I had my first of hopefully two World Series Satellites at my home game a couple of weeks ago. My good friend Cali Al was the last poker player standing (or rather sitting) when the dust settled and he'll be entering a 1K bracelet event near the end of June. I plan to be there to show him support, and I plan to play a hell of a lot of poker as well.
I'm still in the running in my online league for a seat, though I've slipped into second place - I need to take a couple of tournaments down in the 6 remaining to have a real shot, so it's looking less than certain. As for my home game, it looks like I'll have another satellite, this time likely a single table; odds aren't great on that either simply because of variance and it's winner take all.
So if I don't win the seat, I'll continue this great internal debate with myself over whether or not just to pony up a thousand bucks of my own money or wait till next year - but whatever I decide, I have to decide before I get on the plane. If I wait and still haven't made up my mind, I know I will succumb to temptation and relinquish a dime at the cage. This may or may not be a bad thing - I am financially in a pretty good place in my life, plus I have close to $800 in profit stuck in a drawer in my garage, I could easily justify only $200 more on what would likely be the tournament experience of a lifetime for me.
But on the other hand, as someone who has traveled the world and seen up close the worst poverty imaginable, it's hard to stomach dropping 1K on a game. If I had the $ I would match the entry fee with a donation to a charity and then pledge a large percentage of my winnings - only then would it seem somewhat sensible. Okay, I would probably still be rationalizing it.
Anyway - let's assume I don't win the seat and I decide to be sensible. In this scenario I'm still likely dropping my entire profit for the year on entry fees in just under four days. (Although, to be fair, I know the fields will be pretty soft in the tournaments outside the Rio. I'm very unlikely not to cash at least once in four days.)
I'll have to play a $75 turbo satellite every day at the Rio - every 10th player wins a $500 lammer and $50 cash. If I win one of these, I'll for sure pony up another $500 and enter a 1K bracelet event.
For sure I'm going to play in a Rio 2pm $235 Deep Stack Event. The good news on these tournaments is - it's in the Amazon room so you can pretend you're playing in the WSOP as you star gaze at the tv pros, the structure and starting stack are tremendous and the prize pool is always chunky. The bad news is, if you go deep, you typically stagger out at 6 in the morning the next day.
I'll also likely play in a Venetian and/or Caeser's deepstack - these typically run at $350 or so.
Then I'll fill out the rest of my time with smaller events - the Aria daily or a turbo at T.I. and elsewhere. If I haven't cashed by the time Wednesday morning rolls around, I'll be looking at $800 gone like the wind.
So really the question here is - do I want to buy an $800 lottery ticket on one big Sunday afternoon tournament loaded with sharks and burdened with a small starting stack with literally thousands of entrants - or do I want to spread out my playing time with a bunch of smaller lottery tickets in softer and better structured events?
When I write it out like that, it seems really obvious that the latter is the only real choice. But still...
IT'S THE FUCKING WORLD SERIES OF FUCKING POKER!!!!
We'll see.
