The World Series Experience

If I'm reading my Card Player distribution date calendar better than an opponent read the board the other night, you should be reading this issue just about the time the 32nd annual World Series of Poker gets under way.

My opponent exchanged eight reraises with me into a board that read A 5 2 9 3 before he finally called and said, "No reason to raise anymore, I guess we have the same hand," a pretty interesting comment since there was a potential flush out there, and he turned over his A-4 off54suit for the second-nut straight. My A K took the pot, and he realized, quite embarrassed, that he hadn't seen the flush possibility. I'll try to remember this hand the next time I suffer a bad beat.

I think I am reading the calendar correctly, though, and if so, you're picking up this magazine at an exciting time. As great as many of the other big-time tournaments are, there's nothing like the WSOP. If you've never been, I strongly encourage you to come and check it out, even if your budget doesn't provide for entry into events that cost anywhere from $1,500 to $10,000.

First and foremost, the WSOP provides a great opportunity to watch and learn from the best. The final table of each event except the "big one" itself starts at 4 p.m. each day, and Binion's sets up grandstands for the spectators. Because so much is at stake, and because the quality of the fields is so strong, you're virtually guaranteed every day to be able to watch at least four (and usually more) truly outstanding players playing their absolute "A" games.

You can see these players at other tournaments, true enough, but not always concentrated so closely together, and usually not with so much on the line. Many great players don't always play their best, but everyone rises to the occasion when a gold bracelet is on the line.

I'm thoroughly convinced that one of the reasons my own tournament record has been as good as it has the last year or so is that I have covered almost every single WSOP final table the last two years, and have gotten to watch the best play their best. You've probably seen the stories running as a one-per-issue series the last two years, and Card Player plans to do that again this year. If you want to follow the action as it goes down, you'll be able to find my daily reports at www.poker.casino.com.

There are plenty of reasons to attend beyond a poker education, though. The side action during the Series is tremendous. Many players jump into games that involve much higher stakes than those they usually play. Many hometown heroes also make this their one big excursion of the year, and many of them find their results more on the tragic than the heroic side.

Even the low-stakes games are good, in what might be called a "trickle-up" effect. Many of the better regulars in these lower-stakes games move up to bigger action during the Series, leaving the lower-stakes games more beatable, especially as spouses who usually don't play jump into action.

You also get a chance to meet many of the people whom you know only through the pages of Card Player. While it may not be particularly exciting to meet Max Shapiro (I know I'm asking for it by mentioning poker's sharpest wit in this fashion, but what can I say, I'm a glutton for punishment, and I only "ding" my good friends), it is exciting to meet the reigning world champion, and when you do, you'll find that Chris Ferguson is indeed one of the nicest and most gracious people you'll ever meet, in or out of poker.

You do have to pick your spots to approach the legends of our game – the moment immediately after someone has busted out of a tournament isn't good, for example, and neither is his or her 10-minute bathroom break or the middle of his or her dinner – but you'll probably find many of poker's great champions to be very courteous and happy to speak with you if you approach them appropriately. Most of them are not so jaded that they don't appreciate a fan coming up and introducing himself/herself. Far from making a nuisance of yourself, you may help make someone's day.

You can also plunk down $220 and enter a supersatellite, and with a little good fortune find yourself owning an admission ticket to the memory of a poker lifetime: a chance to tee it up against the world's best for life-changing money.

Whether you go for the education, a chance to score in the side games or to meet people you've only read about, or just the sheer energy in the room, if you love poker, I think you'll come away from your World Series adventure one happy camper. If you're not lucky enough to be able to get there, I promise to give you more than "Jones bet and Smith called" in my daily reports. There are so many fascinating things happening, I won't have much trouble keeping that promise.

Andy Glazer is the weekly gambling columnist for the Detroit Free Press and the author of Casino Gambling the Smart Way. He is also the online poker guide for www.poker.casino.com, and welcomes your questions there, or via E-mail at [email protected].