What do I really expect to happen

The most likely result of my trip is a loss. If I was to go play this same set of tournaments 1,000 times I have no doubt that my net result would be positive, (and that's why I'm going). But, it would probably be the result of 750 losing trips and 250 winning ones. The key is the wins would tend to be much, much larger than the losses.

Last year (in my first year at the WSOP) I played in three events and even though I had a net loss I would classify the trip as a success (probably a B or a B- on my scale). The first event I played in was a $2,500 No Limit Hold 'em event and I finished 72 out of 1050 which paid $3,750 gross ($1,250 net). Unfortunately in my second event ($2,500 Pot Limit Hold 'em) I finished about 100 out of 450 and in my third event ($2,000 No Limit Hold 'em) I finished about 250 out of 1100. So even though I was better than the 25 percentile in all three tournaments I lost $3,750 (actually I personally only lost about half that since I had investors who had put up half the money). Maybe the best thing about that trip is I've already done it once so now I'm not going to be nearly as nervous as I was last year.