My Schedule

All of this poker and WSOP stuff is great, but what the hell will you actually be doing!? I'll be staying at the Rio (where all of the events are taking place) from June 26th until July 9th for the preliminary events. I'll be heading back to Vegas again on July 27th for the main event, which could last 5 minutes or 12 days depending on how I do. Here is my exact itinerary with the dates, the variety of poker and the buy-in for each tournament.

Tue June 27 No-Limit Hold'em $1.5k
Wed June 28 Pot-Limit Hold'em $1.5k
Thu June 29 Limit Hold'em $1.5k
Fri June 30 No-limit Hold'em Short Handed, 6/table $2.5k
Sat Jul 1 No-Limit Hold'em $2k
Sun Jul 2 Limit Hold'em $3k
Tue Jul 4 No-Limit Hold'em $5k
Wed Jul 5 Seven Card Stud $1.5k
Thu Jul 6 Limit Hold'em $1.5k
Fri Jul 7 No-Limit Hold'em $2.5k
Sat Jul 8 No-Limit Hold'em w/re-buys $1k (3K-5K total commitment)

Fri Jul 28 No-Limit Texas Hold'em World Championship Event $10k

Sure looks like a lot of poker when I look at it this way. But the chances of me playing all of these events is remote. The first 11 events are theoretically 3 day events. The first day consists of about 15 hours of play (there's a 15 minute break every 2 hours and a 1 hour dinner break about 6 hours into each event). The next day whoever is left (about 5%-10% of the starting field) comes back and they play down to the top 9 players who come back the next day for the televised final table. So if I make it to day 2 of an event I won't be playing day one of the next event. I expect the first event to have over 2000 entrants (like it did last year) and even the smallest events (some of the limit hold 'em events or the stud event) will still have at least 300 or 400 so making day 3 is going to be extremely difficult. If I make it that far in ANY event the trip will be a huge success monetarily and otherwise. Conversely if I don't see day 2 of any event the trip will be a spectacular failure. Keep in mind, however, that these are not chess tournaments or golf tournaments where the best players always tend to do better than the worst. The short term luck factor (notice I said short term, because in the long run everyone gets the same distribution of cards and skill alone separates the winning players from the losing ones) in poker can destroy the best laid plans. In poker the best player in a tournament can be the first one out and the worst player could win outright. Of course it's much more likely to be the other way around. One of the great things about the WSOP is they give you time. The longer the tournament lasts the more skill comes into play. Hopefully I'll be able to avoid the rough spots early and give my skill a chance to come into play.