Ah, the 2007
World Series of Poker is almost here. That means booking my flight, packing, finding a place to stay, choosing which events I will play, getting my head clear, cleaning, covering, and storing my cars, making sure my puppies are well taken care of while I am gone, and getting ready to sweat my rear end off again in the Vegas summer heat. Oh, and, of course, selling my blood, purse-snatching, knocking over 7-Elevens, and pawning my watch to come up with the gazillion dollars for the buy-ins. I'm kidding, obviously … I would never pawn my watch.
This column is about life on the road for extended periods of time and some funny occurrences during last year's
WSOP. Maybe through my experiences, you can make things a little easier on yourself. It's not as simple as it seems, actually. I have been trying to get better at it each year. Two years ago, I was in Vegas for six weeks and played nine events at the
WSOP. I rented a condo about 20 minutes away from the Rio. I rented a car and drove every day with a friend of mine to the Rio to play. It seemed like a good arrangement, but after a time, I started to think it'd be much better to stay at the hotel where I was playing rather than get up and drive there and drive home. It also would cut down on the amount of time I would have to spend in the Vegas sun. So, last year, I tried a little experiment and stayed at a friend's house for three weeks and at the Rio for another four weeks, for a total of seven weeks and 14
WSOP events. So, which was better for my head? I found that while staying in the hotel was convenient and less worrisome, it got pretty boring and stale. I have decided that the drive is a good thing each morning and night, so this year, I am renting a house about 15 minutes away from the Rio, and I will be there from day one until the end. Do yourself a favor and get out and do things while you're at a tournament for such a long time. Don't just sit in your hotel room and play online. Keep your mind fresh, and the drive will help. So, what happened with me at the 2006
WSOP, and were there differences in my play between the first events and the last ones?
During the first seven or eight events, while I was staying in the house, I felt great and ready to play. I had learned that my stepfather had passed away the morning of the $5,000 no-limit hold'em event, and I didn't play too well that day. Other than that event, however, I believe I played very well but just had a horrible run of bad luck. This included having pocket kings 20 times (yes, 20!) throughout the events. Having kings 20 times was amazing in itself, but even more so was the fact that they were good only four times of those 20! I never slow-played them, and only
once did my opponent have an ace in his hand (A-9). This means that the rest of the time, they were beaten by underpairs and undercards. That's just silly - so silly, in fact, that it sparked Mike Matusow to tell me that he may finally know someone who's more unlucky than him in poker. I think he passed his curse on to me with that statement, because my
Series was just horrendous last year. God, I hope that curse is over. Full houses beat by royal flushes, full houses beat by quad nines, and flushes over flushes were just some of my other huge failures for the
Series.
OK, let's get back to my point of whether I played better at the beginning or at the end, while staying at the Rio. As I said, I believe I played well throughout, with the exception of that $5,000 event and then the main event. I bluffed all of my chips away in the main event. There could be a few reasons for this. It could be because I was fatigued after seven weeks of play. It could even be a bit of extended tilt after running so horribly throughout the other events. But looking back, I truly believe it was because I felt completely stale after being in that casino around-the-clock for literally four weeks. I was only about five hours into the main event, but I felt like I had been playing it for weeks. I was already waiting for the final-table bubble (laughing), but, in reality, that was still a week away.
I did try to do a few things to stay up and fresh, including dragging David Matthew (second-place finisher in the 2006
World Poker Tour Championship) and Jody Trainer on a three-hour search for a "man purse" at the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace. I played some $2-$5 and $5-$10 cash games like a crazy person, chatting relentlessly and moving a lot of chips (it was probably steam, but it turned out to be quite profitable, actually). I had some friends visit me while I was there and spent time in the restaurants, the VooDoo Lounge, and so on … but looking back, no matter what I was doing outside of playing the tournaments, I was still in that damn casino with the same surroundings, and it was all a blur. I will now try to spend as little time in the casino as possible. I will go each day to play the tournament and leave when the day is over. I believe that this will keep all of the events from running together and will keep me from getting that stale feeling. So, in short, play each event individually and don't let them run together. Get out of that stupid casino.
With all of this said, conversely, I do believe that if you're playing one single tournament like a
WPT event that lasts five or six days, you should stay where the tournament is being played rather than travel each day. But, in such a long series of tournaments like the
WSOP, you must stay fresh and away from the casino when you are not actually playing an event. Remember that the most likely reason that people spend so much time in the casino is to socialize with friends whom they may see only at tournaments. The best way to solve that is to just rent a house with those friends, so that you can socialize away from the casino and be at the casino only to work. Treat the tournaments like your job, and have your fun elsewhere.
Todd Arnold is the trainer and co-creator of www.realpokertraining.com, and a private coach for online and live players. For private coaching information, visit his site or contact him at [email protected].
