Adios Las Vegas.

Tournament poker is a brutal game.  Live tournament poker - can really break spirits.  I came to the WSOP this year feeling amazing.  In 2009 and 2010 I went cashless, and played less than ten events totals due to mostly personal issues coming up.  In 2011, with an engagement on the way, I figured there was nothing between me and a successful World Series.  I've never felt better. 

Unfortunately, i have again gone cashless.  I played six events in the span of two weeks – the $2500NL, the $2500 mixed, two $1500NL, and two $1000NLs.  Live tournament poker is really slow.  The WSOP events are an hour long, and you maybe see 25 hands in an hour.  In all NLHE events, you start with 3x the buyin for starting chips.  That doesn't leave a lot of room for deep stacked play, so I was forced to take coinflips earlier on than I would like in order to amass chips to get to the middle levels.  I lost every single race situation I had.

The WSOP has made me miss online poker even more.  When playing online, I could easily get in 300 tournaments during this time span.  I usually cash about 12-15% of my tournaments, but that is over a relatively large sample size.  I've only cashed two major tournaments in probably 50 played over the last few years.  4% is really far from 15%!  Every tournament takes an entire day, so instead of playing 30 a day, I'm stuck playing one.  It's really hard to stay mentally positive when going through tough stretches of live play.

I'm writing this on my way home to Philadelphia.  Hopefully, the two weeks with my fiance will recharge me for the Main Event.  I'm not leaving Vegas broken, but I really had high hopes for tournaments this WSOP.

See-ya in two weeks, LV, 10.0 out of 10 based on 1 rating Comments