The First Week of the 2015 WSOP

Here I am, back at the house on a Friday afternoon for what is the first real little break of the WSOP so far. It has been an interesting week. Rick and I drove down from Seattle last Thursday. By the time I dropped him off where he is staying, stopped by the RIO and picked up my colossus tickets and got my truck unloaded at the house, it was 1 am. Straight to bed.

I played 2 flights of the colossus each of Friday and Saturday with no luck. In between, I got the house situated (groceries and such), had a meal with a friend that lives in Vegas, and had a beer with some of the casino employees that were down from Seattle for the employee’s event and Colossus.

Then on Sunday, the 10k 2-7 triple draw tournament started at 4pm. Early in the day, I got some exercise and caught up on emails and such.   At the end of the first day, at 3 am, I was second in chips.

Day 2 started at 2pm. An 11 hour turnaround is pretty quick when you need to drive home, unwind, sleep, wake up, have breakfast, call the family, and drive back to the RIO.  Day 2 went well. I actually had the chip lead with 10 players left, but went to the final table on day 3 in 6^th place out of 7.   We bagged at 3 am again and day 3 started at 2pm again. Same turnaround.

So we came in for day 3 which was the final table, and played in the thunder dome as they call it. A few friends stopped by to watch and give me their best wishes. Unfortunately, it was a short day. I played about 2 hours and finished in 6^th place for just over $46k. Not a bad way to start the WSOP.

This was on Tuesday. It turns out that there were other tournaments going on Tuesday as well (shocking I know). So I went and had some food with a friend and then signed up late for the 4pm tournament at 6pm. You can register anywhere from 2-8hrs late depending on the event this year. The WSOP allows this so that players can do exactly what I did, bust out of one and move on to the next one.

The first day in the limit tournament went pretty well. I bagged 32k or so from 7500 to start. We were done at 3am, and then back at 2pm for day 2 on Wednesday. Day 2 started off well. I worked my way up to 70k in chips with 92 players left. 72 spots got paid. So I had about the average in the money stack (stack size at 72 players…). But, alas, I didn’t win any more pots. At about 8:10, I ran out of chips in 82^nd place. No money.   The only good news was that registration for the noon event, $1500 6 handed no-limit, didn’t close until 8:15. So I went and signed up for that.

You get your full starting stack, which in that event was 7500. The average stack was about 20k when I sat down and the BB was 400. Not perfect, but the WSOP only comes once a year. I ended up playing in that event until around 11:30. I finished somewhere in the mid 300s out of 1600+. 180 players got paid, so if I had managed to win another hand or two, I might have made it into the money in that one. At this point I was pretty tired. I registered for the noon event on Thursday, which was the $1500 NL Shoot out. Then I went home, had a snack and went to sleep.

So now I actually slept 8 hours for the first time since I was in Vegas. I got up, talked with my roommate a little, had breakfast and headed into the RIO. I managed to win my first table of the shoot out at about 8:30 or so. It was my second cash of the week (pretty happy with that). And it was just in time to see the very end of the Cavs/Warriors game. So last night I actually got back to the house around 10pm and didn’t have to be at the RIO for the tournament until 1pm.

I relaxed a little and then got a solid night’s sleep. I got up this morning and got some exercise, answered some emails, did a little work for the website and headed into the RIO. I was scheduled to talk to CardPlayerTV at 12:20.

http://www.cardplayer.com/cptv/channels/13-poker-news/poker-videos/5178-rep-porter-discusses-the-poker-academy-training-site

The shoot out started at 1pm and I was the 4^th guy eliminated from my table around 4pm. I lost 2 big pots in blind vs blind spots. Everyone who didn’t win the day 2 tables got the same payday, $5413.

So, like any other WSOP day, I could still go register for the day tournament. In this case, the Millionaire Maker tournament started at 10 and was in the middle of level 6. That was the last level for registration. I headed over to play. I sat down with 25 BBs. The first BB I posted was a 4 way pot, where I flopped top pair against a flush draw and 2 overcards. I didn’t win.

And now here I am updating the blog for the week.   If it feels like it was a busy week, it is because it was. And I haven’t even managed to play a hand of cash games yet. On average, I will have 6 out of 7 days for the rest of the summer with a similar pace. Tomorrow, the Milly Maker starts at 10am again, and then the $10k Razz starts at 4pm. Sunday, there is a 6 handed $3000 buy-in limit hold’em that I will play, and on and on…

-Rep Porter