Distractions and Deviations - The WSOP as a Holiday Destination

2008 marked the first time that I have attended the carnival of cards known as the World Series of Poker without any sort of work remit. Usually I am one of a myriad of bloggers, dodging the security guards, pad in hand, reporting on the action, and marvelling at the scale of the events that yearly fill the Rio's Amazon Room to bursting. Over a month and a half, I grow accustomed to that domino sound of riffling chips and the exclamations of delight and disgust that inevitably accompany any four-figure group of poker players as they deal out and receive a month's worth of bad beats in the course of a day. And by the end, I am more than ready to be transported from the sensory overload of Las Vegas back to my calm London flat, having barely touched a card.

This year, however, I had the intention of trying out the life of the player rather than the observer, and armed with a sleep cycle that just so happened to coincide rather nicely with Pacific Standard Time (God bless the Internet), I thought that I already had overcome the biggest hurdle in a town where the big daily tournaments start at noon (8 p.m. UK time). But Vegas has a strange habit of sucking up time; without a watch, the date and days of the week became strangely indistinct, and nearly five days passed in a blur of casino-hopping and party-crawling without a foot set in a cardroom. Friends with birthdays, players with results, corporate events, media events, and the sheer hedonistic whirl of a town geared toward jovially relieving you of your money both on and off the tables combined to make focusing on playing tournaments surprisingly difficult.

More than one player told me that the WSOP is one of the more difficult times of year to come to Nevada to play cards. "Everyone's here," was the half-hearted lament, "and there's so much going on. It's tough to head to the cardroom, then pass a bar five-deep with people you know all offering you a drink, and say, 'No.' I tend to come back in the autumn or spring, when I'm not going to run into the whole complement of people from the tournament circuit back home."

The (from our perspective) wonderful weakness of the U.S. dollar led to a flood of British and Irish players, as well as a decent European contingent heading for the bright lights of Vegas. Results trickled in for the Germans, Belgians, French, with the high point being, from the view of the bartender in the Rio, Marty Smyth's win in the $10,000 pot-limit Omaha world championship. It is impossible to walk past an enormous group of intoxicated Irishmen and not feel a sort of vicarious happiness, or an almost gravitational pull toward the bar.

The celebration of successes, big and small, and even the celebration of the fact that you can walk into any of the casinos at 8 a.m. and order a mojito without a blink from the cocktail waitress are all distractions from the assumed point of coming to the centre of the gambling world at the time when poker is its biggest focus. Apart from the WSOP and its surrounding daily tournaments, other casinos host their lower buy-in, deep-stack events at this time of year, and the sheer wealth of choice all nestled within a one-mile radius can be overwhelming. I gave one of The Venetian's festival events a whirl (a $330 no-limit freezeout), along with 619 other people, and heard several times as the field shrank at an alarming rate, "Well, that's OK - I can buy into the Bellagio $1,000 event until 4 p.m." Assuming one busted out within the first three levels, it would be possible, in theory, to play live tournament poker at 9 a.m., noon, 2 p.m., 7 p.m., 11 p.m., and then the last-chance (as far as I discovered) 2 a.m. daily tournament downtown at Binion's. There's a drink on me to anyone who can prove he actually did this during June or July.

Perhaps being overloaded with choice doesn't make for the sort of focus associated with success in large-field tournaments. Having played live around once a month for the last six months, I certainly wasn't used to the low hands-per-hour, high players-to-the-flop style that characterised some of them. The $1,500 side events at the WSOP are the perfect example. For anyone who hasn't played a tournament with more than 2,500 runners and a starting stack of 3,000, it's an interesting experience. Top pair appeared to be the equivalent of gold dust to a few of the players who started at my table, and it looked fairly promising until my set of tens ran into a gutshot … that's enough deviation into the "land of beats."

Arriving with almost two-thirds of the Series over, it was interesting to talk to people who'd gone for the long run, rented a car, and moved their lives and bankrolls over to the States for the duration. With a few exceptions, a sort of world weariness had descended over the players, who, winners or losers, had gained a sort of poker glaze after spending 18 hours a day in casinos and six hours asleep, repeated throughout June. I don't think I have that sort of stamina, personally, and after nearly two weeks of eating, playing, and sleeping totally at random, the idea of ritually sacrificing whatever remained of my body clock to stay another month made my blood run colder than the Rio air conditioning.

The moral of this story is that the grass is always greener - while I was merely watching the Series progress in all its shiny glory, I thought it would be great to be a free agent dipping toes into events and generally approaching the whole experience in a sober and adult manner. In reality, sober wouldn't be the first word I would come to in describing my first Vegas holiday, and many players over here redefine "adult" as "merely being of legal age to wager money."

The multiplicity of enjoyable distractions make the World Series potentially as expensive for the wide-eyed first-timer as it can be in pursuit of a bracelet for the seriously rolled/sponsored players. For the long run, some good role models (in some ways) are those like Paul "Pab" Foltyn, Steven "allinstevie" Devlin, and Chris "Moorman1" Moorman, who banded together in what they refer to tongue-in-cheek as "the ultimate balla house," a proper off-Strip home bringing some semblance of relaxation away from the tables for the long haul in Vegas. Having cereal in a kitchen without a view of slot machines first thing in the morning must extend one's ability to survive in the insanity of the City of Sin. I'll try it next year. ♠

Jen Mason is a part of www.blondepoker.com. She is responsible for its live tournament coverage in the UK and abroad.