I asked for my vacation time to be approved the SAME day the full WSOP schedule dropped, and since then, my singular focus has been to work a bunch of overtime to save for an AWESOME trip to Vegas for WSOP! I’ll be out there for two full weeks, and the goal is to play some WSOP events, and play as much poker as humanly possible.
I also spent two weeks in Vegas during WSOP in 2019. I didn’t play any WSOP events, and my goal was to experience as many different Vegas card rooms as I could. I played a few of the daily tournaments at the Rio, and learned I should have budgeted to play some of the more affordable WSOP events. A good $250 daily might have a 30-40k first prize, but the Big 50 event was a $500 tournament with 1.14 MEGA up top. It’s the best time and place of the year to play tournaments, where the prize pools will never be bigger.
In 2019, I took 4k, and came back with about 1.2k. This year I’m bringing 6k, with access to more if necessary (hopefully not though). This isn’t a liferoll, and it’s separate from my food and Uber/taxi budget. Flight and AirBnb are already paid for, but I may need to break a bill here and there to keep up a tipping roll.
These are the cardrooms I’ve already played at, sorted by my preference as power rankings:
- The Wynn
- Venetian
- Aria
- Bellagio
- The Rio
- Golden Nugget
- Caesar’s Palace
- Planet Hollywood (RIP)
- MGM Grand
- Binion’s
I’ve started a nice little chip collection, so I don’t regret the choices. One thing I learned from the experience, though, is if you’re just playing 1/2 , 1/3 , or 2/5 … it doesn’t really matter where you play. There’s no surefire “best games in town” in any particular place. The bigger rooms have a slight edge because they offer more selection. But all across town, some 1/2 games are nitty, some games are fantastic with wild drunk donators, and many games have trash regs or recs that are trying to play well, but actually suck. Game selection is important, because if you’re in a 1/2 game that kinda sucks, just rack up and move to the next table. This is something I’m dedicating myself to work on this trip, because it’s in my nature to play very long sessions. I’ve been playing too many years to get badly stung by “hot, angry” tilt, but I’m definitely susceptible to “cold” tilt where I lose focus and patience over time. Losing because of that really annoys me, because it’s an old lesson I’ve “learned” over and over again. I’m in Vegas, there’s always a better game in the same room, across the street, wherever!
These are some rooms I haven’t played at. I’ll try to check them out when I can, but as above, I don’t feel like I HAVE to hit all these rooms:
- Resorts World
- Sahara
- Mandalay Bay
- Bally’s (closed for WSOP)
- Flamingo (closed for WSOP)
- The Orleans
- Red Rock
