I get asked a lot of questions about last year's
World Series of Poker experience. As you may or may not know, last year was my first trip to the
World Series of Poker, and I was fortunate enough to go very deep in two of the four events I entered. I use the word fortunate because while it did take a great deal of skill to accomplish this, it also took a great deal of good old-fashioned luck, or at the very least, not getting unlucky.
I had my fair share of drawouts, but only a handful of truly key ones that I remember. Probably the most important thing was that I never lost an important pot when I got all of my chips in when ahead, until close to the very end. Sometimes, lack of misfortune in itself is quite fortunate. I say all of this only because going deep in a handful of events on your first try is not something that occurs very often.
With that in mind, this year's
World Series of Poker is ready to start, and I'm getting a lot of e-mail and questions from players who are going there for the first time this year regarding how they can duplicate my success. While I can't pass along any good fortune, I can pass along some advice from what I learned last year.
Probably the single most important thing you can do if you're new to big live poker events, especially the
World Series of Poker, is to make sure that you're comfortable. This may sound trivial, but when thousands of poker players are packed into a room, and events sometimes start with 11 players to a table, a comfortable "working environment" is of the utmost importance if you are to be able to make the best decisions you can for an entire (sometimes very long) day at the tables. If you think the table is unevenly spaced, don't be afraid to ask the dealer to "square up" the table so that you have enough room.
Once you've established a comfortable working environment for spending all day at the tables (and believe me, if you're not comfortable, it doesn't get better at 2 a.m.), the second most important thing in my eyes is not to be intimidated or afraid to ask questions. I see many first-timers at the
World Series of Poker, and most of them don't realize that the dealer is there to help them. Don't be afraid to ask questions if you're uncertain of the action or what's expected of you. I see too many players make mistakes simply because they're afraid to ask a question.
The last piece of advice that I have that I think is important is to make sure that you verbalize all of your actions. Many of the simpler mistakes that I saw players make last year could have been avoided this way. Since verbal actions are binding, if you announce, "I call," and then put in too many chips, you are allowed to pull the appropriate amount back. If you don't say anything, you must make a raise. The same is the case with raising; if you want to raise but put in an oversized chip, your intended raise is a call if you don't verbalize it. You'll avoid mistakes if you simply verbalize all of your actions. This also makes things clear with the dealer and the other players at your table. Dealers are people too, and sometimes they make mistakes. Verbalizing your actions makes this less likely, and also enables the other players to defend you on the chance that a mistake is made.
In case you haven't noticed, none of my advice involves any actual poker-related strategy. Unfortunately, there is no recipe to instantly make you a better poker player right before the
World Series of Poker. The important thing is to control what you can control, so that you can play up to your full potential. As long as you make sure that everything is in place for you to play your best poker for perhaps up to 12 hours a day, the rest will take care of itself.
Eric "Rizen" Lynch is a professional poker player who is well-known for his impressive online results. Read Eric's analysis on his blog (rizenpoker.blogspot.com), and check out his instructional videos, available at PokerXFactor.com.
