Choices

I was recently speaking to my backer about plans for upcoming tournaments and we were discussing which venues I should focus my play over the next stretch of time. We started talking about a stretch of tournaments that just concluded that made things tough on one of the scheduled stops that just ended. We settled on a good plan for myself, but it got me thinking about the choices tournament players have these days and how that can be both helpful and stressful.

During the World Series of Poker, there are now so many different options for buy-ins, venues, and game types that you can find pretty much whatever you’re looking to play while in Vegas every day you decide to go there. There’s a great resource that Kenny Hallaert, the 2016 WSOP main event final tablist, compiles every year that has a comprehensive list of every event at all of the major festivals during the summer in Vegas from May 14 through the end of July. He lists tournaments taking place at the Rio, Venetian, Wynn, Planet Hollywood, Aria, Golden Nugget, Binions, and the Orleans with buy-ins ranging from $125 all the way up to $1 million. If you search for “spaceyFCB WSOP document” or just go to @spaceyFCB on twitter you’ll find the link to the Google Doc. It’s a spectacular document for planning your time and really goes to show you how the casinos in Vegas are taking advantage of the influx of poker players during this time of year.

There are different philosophies on offer throughout the month with some casinos offering counter-programming to the WSOP (a no-limit hold’em tournament on the day of a big WSOP mixed game event), and some running parallel events with later start times. The casinos themselves switch their approaches throughout the month as well. If you were determined and had the energy, time, money, and perhaps some unfortunate luck, it would be more than possible to play over 100 tournaments in the 47 days that the WSOP will be running. It’s an opportunity I wish I had 12 years ago when I had less commitments and more energy. Even now it’s great because if I feel like squeezing three weeks worth of tournaments into one week, it’s entirely possible. Last year, I managed to play four different tournaments in one day at two casinos, a wondrous achievement for my self-esteem.

These casinos have clearly taken advantage of the fact that they have a captive audience for a seven-week stretch and they’re helping tournament players be as efficient as possible.

On the other side of that spectrum is the plethora of choices that players were just faced with in April. The month started out well, with the opportunity to play a WSOP Circuit event in Vegas and a WPT Deepstacks in Thunder Valley. Then you start having to pick between major events. First choice, go to Barcelona for the Party Poker event or Florida for the WPT event with almost completely overlapping schedules. Next, choose between the Montreal Party Poker event, the Monte Carlo EPT event, and the Bellagio WPT event, again with almost completely overlapping schedules.

Sure, this is a great choice to have for players that have infinite bankroll and travel budgets, but it makes it tough on some of the series to draw. Of course, it’s up to them to make their schedule and you could argue that they should have made better decisions in that regard, but it really illustrates the importance of the WSOP timeframe by contrast.

I’m glad that big tournament series are offering big guarantees and really making it clear that they’re fighting for the business of poker players around the globe. I wish that I could have had tournaments like these to play when I was a travelling pro. It’s also quite clear to me that the summer is still the marquis time of year if this is your business and that’s illustrated by the ability of eight tournament venues to put forth their product all at the same time and get plenty of traffic at each one.

Whatever the venue, game type and buy-in choices you decide to make over the summer in Vegas, it’s a great opportunity to play some tournaments, make some money, and have fun. Choices like those are what make the summer a blast. ♠

Gavin Griffin was the first poker player to capture a World Series of Poker, European Poker Tour and World Poker Tour title and has amassed nearly $5 million in lifetime tournament winnings. Griffin is sponsored by HeroPoker.com. You can follow him on Twitter @NHGG