Secrets of the Amateurs

So, if I want to put $15K or so into WSOP events prior to the ME, what's my best plan ? As usual, it depends on exactly what I'm trying to do. I want to give myself as good a chance as possible to make a final table and/or trouser a couple of hundred K. The first thing I have to think about here is how to avoid as many of the best players as possible.

"Best players" does not necessarily mean most famous players. Sometimes it does, of course. Ivey is the tournament Guvnor. Lindgren I have tremendous respect for after reading his book. Maybe a couple of others. But a lot of the "faces" would be no more of a concern than top internet players like Rizen, Imper1um, several of the 2+2ers, and so on. So what events are really going to attract the top players from either or both camps ? $50K HORSE would be the obvious choice (starts Sunday 24th June), especially for the live players. I reckon that the $5K Heads Up (Tuesday 19th) will attract all the best live and internet players. Those would be the big two. After those, probably the $3K No Limit (Sunday 17th) because it's televised ; the $5K short-handed (Thursday 28th) ; the $10K PLO (Sunday 1st July) and maybe the $1K rebuy the following day.

If we can pick up on any likely events close to these, ideally starting on the same day, then that sounds good to me. Some candidates are as follows :

$2500 NL Short-handed (Mon 18th) and/or $2000 7 Card Stud (Tue 19th)
$1500 Mixed (NL/Limit) Holdem (Sun 24th) - probably best of all, same day as the $50K
$1000 Stud Hi-Lo (Thur 28th) - I rule at Stud Hi/Lo tournaments
$1000 SHOE (Sun 1st) - I can't play Omaha 8 for toffee but what the hell, donkaments is donkaments.

Damn, that's only $8000 even if I play all of them. I've got to spunk off more money than that. Well anyway, that's a start. Those are good events to target. Checking the list, I might also have a crack at these :

$2000 NL (Friday 15th)
$2000 PL (Friday 22nd) - some of the trip reports I read from the previous PL event featured a lot of unbelievably poor play
$1500 NL (Saturday 30th)

That's the kind of schedule I might be looking at, 8 bracelet events. Mix in a few $500 single tables (playing to win), the odd $1000 (chop OK I suppose as long as it's fair) and we'll keep an eye on what's going on in the Bellagio - $2500 on the 26th catches the eye as that's a bit of a lull in the NL action at the Rio, so it might be full of donks, and maybe the 3rd as well, if I don't feel like I need a break before the ME. And while I really like the Venetian card-room, $500 is just too small for a balla like me :-). Especially as I've just read a claim on 2+2 that if anything the $500s at the Venetian are slightly _tougher_ than the $1500s in the Rio in terms of standard of opposition.

Evening tournaments don't appeal at the moment, I read a good post on another blog recently which said that you don't mind playing at 10pm so much if you're 10 hours in to the tournament because now it's really starting to matter, and the adrenaline keeps you going. I know from past experience that being 3 hours in to an evening comp that you weren't sure about playing in the first place is really no fun if you don't have a big stack and you need matchsticks to prop your eyelids up.

So we'll give that a spin and see what comes of it. Should be fun whatever happens.

Update : I'm now thinking about playing the $1500 Shootout on Tuesday to kick it off. Although it's the day after I arrive, the shootout format has a lot of features that favour playing anyway (probably won't take long whatever, I can pushbot fairly early, only a two day event). If the lines aren't ridiculous and I feel OK on Tuesday morning, I'll probably play it.