Obviously that's the goal and I appreciate your response, but is there a strategy that you have found works better in these things? The only WSOP event I played was the 2006 ME and I made it to end of day two. I really don't recall how I played, but I wasn't catching the deck that's for sure.

I was thinking that playing tight in a $1500 might bite you in the ass when the antes and blinds go up. That's why I figured starting out really aggressive and trying to double up bodes well in that tournament.

Just remember there will be a lot of bad players, and you can't bluff bad players very well.

Huh? Even Hellmuth in going to cash in only 20% (at best) of the $1000 WSOP he plays.

Yeah these things are pretty hard to cash given the large field.

20% sounds about right. Then luck just takes over to take you to final table. That's what all of us dream about, having a lucky deck and give us a big score.

cashing 20% in any tournament format is really really good...

% cashed and ROI aren't even close to the same thing.

It's not really a turbo. People are so disillusioned by these "deep stack" tournaments that they don't even bother to look at things like structure and get all frazzled over starting stacks. With an hour at 25/25 and an hour at 25/50, you could fold for two hours without much damage.

This is a three day tournament and most likely not ITM until the second day. How long do you really want to play for $1000?

The point is that in ONE SINGLE tournament, there is an 80% chance that Hellmuth will have a negative ROI for that particular single tournament.

I don't understand why people think it's harder to cash in a large field event.

If you have a 3000 person $1k WSOP donkament, the top 300 people get paid.

If you have a 60 person $1k Bellagio Cup tourney, the top 6 people get paid.

Either way, you have to make the top 10%. If the field is exactly the same toughness, it should be equal. But there is an advantage to cashing the large field event, because there is a finite number of excellent players. It almost surely will be more than 6 in the Bellagio, and almost surely will be less than 300 in the WSOP event. So to cash the Bellagio event you will have to outplay or get luckier than excellent players, not so in the WSOP event.

I was following you when you were you using math to explain your logic, but lost you when you said that there wouldn't be that many good players in a WSOP $1000 event. With huge prize pools, the softest fields and a chance to win a bracelet, the best pros definitely want to get in on it.

I actually think that limping your entire range early on this tournament has some merit. A lot of people(including myself sometimes) automatically assume you are a bad player if you limp pre-flop which may help you be able to make some moves at the table. You will get to see a lot of flops cheap with playable hands and can't get blown off your hand preflop. I'm sure it's probably exploitable against the good players, but if you are a good postflop player hopefully you are able to build up a nice stack then go back to your regular game. There should be at least 4 or 5 fish at your table who are willing to pay you off. You are going to need to hit some good hands in the 1st two or three hours so you can't just sit around and wait for premiums.

He is saying there are only so many great players in the world.

what i mean is that there are only so many 'elite' players. if 25 of them play the Bellagio and 200 of them play the WSOP, 'elite' players still make up a much greater portion of the field in the B, and by pure math, some 'non-elite' players will cash the WSOP since there are 200 of them and 300 cash spots.

For your WSOP example, I have to outlast 2699 other people to get paid. For the Bellagio cup I only need to outlast 53 other people. Its generally easier to outlast 53 people than 2699. Thus its easier to cash in the smaller event than the larger one. So if the field is exactly the same toughness, it's not equal. I have to win a ton more chips (which requires winning a lot more hands in spots with the same cEV) than in the second example.

This is completely flawed thinking. For the WSOP I have to make the top 300. For the Bellagio I have to make the top 6. It's generally easier to make the top 300 than the top 6. Thus its easier to cash in the larger event than the smaller one.

You see?

10% is 10% is 10%. But the smaller fields mean you have to beat some of the most elite players in the field to cash, you don't have to in the larger fields.