2024 WSOP: June 1, Event 5C Mystery Millions Bounty NLHE (part 2 of 6)
A dealer with 15 years of rust … The missing seat becomes an issue after all … A dealer who seemingly has never heard of airplanes

Level 2

200/300/300

We no longer have The World’s Slowest Dealer. He is replaced by a dealer who tells the table “I haven’t dealt in 15 years, so I’m rusty.”

This is when a new player appears and there is a problem. This player is wearing a hat that says Hammered and then something about a company beneath that. Obviously, we’ll name him Hammered. Anyway, Hammered shows up and says that he is seat 9 and someone is sitting in it. Actually, someone is sitting in seat 8. There is no seat 9 because we are missing a seat. I tried to explain it at the time to The World’s Slowest Dealer, who ignored the issue. Our current dealer is very apologetic, and an additional chair is found. Everyone scoots over, and Hammered is seated. We are good to go.

In Seat 7 is a player wearing a shirt that says Diesel on it, so naturally we name him VinDiesel. It very quickly becomes apparent that VinDiesel has staked claim to the title of Table Captain. He is playing in a lot of hands and is pushing players off their hands post-flop. In short order VinDiesel has accumulated a lot of chips.

We get a new dealer who is neither slow nor rusty. He normally deals in Florida and says he drove here to deal in the WSOP in 31 hours over two days. One of the other players asks him if he’s ever heard of an airplane.

End of Level 2: 32,400 chips.

Level 3

200/400/400

The player next to me is Tea&Honey because of his drink order when he first sat down at the table. At first I was going to call him Mr.Nondescript because there is nothing identifying about his clothing or his physical appearance or his personality. He hasn’t been involved in many hands. He is very quiet. He has just blended into the background of this table. After the flop and turn he calls bets from his opponent. After the river he gets into a raising war and is all-in. All he has is a busted straight draw, and he is out of the tournament. He completely lost his mind during this hand.

When I am in the big blind, I call a bet from a guy with a red beard. I have 9-Q suited. The flop is A-x-x rainbow and RedBeard (which I think sounds like a pirate) bets and I fold.

Next hand I am in the small blind, and I see two beautiful black aces. VinDiesel bets from middle position. I min 3-bet and after I do so I worry that this small sizing may have been too obvious on my part. Obviously, it is not too obvious to this opponent as Vin Diesel 4-bets. The thought going through my head at this time is do I just call and disguise the true strength of my hand, or do I 5-bet. I know that VinDiesel is a player who likes to aggressively push people off their hands post-flop, so there is a high likelihood that Vin Diesel will continue to voluntarily put chips in the pot on future streets. On the other hand, if the flop is scary it might slow VinDiesel down. Ultimately, I decide that VinDiesel is acting like he has a huge hand. If he has kings or queens, which seems very possible as played, then let’s get it all-in preflop. I 5-bet. VinDiesel thinks about it for a while and he folds.

After he folds, VinDiesel tries to make eye contact and he smiles as if to say, did you have it? I remain stone faced and ignore the questioning look. I’m not giving up any information to this particular player.

The very next hand I am on the button, the action folds to me and I bet with Js-Ks. The player in the big blind has a surfing shirt on, so we’ll call him SurferDude. The flop is 7-4-8 no spades. SurferDude checks, I bet and SurferDude folds. At this point I have 39,200 chips. I am almost completely back to my starting stack.

In a hand that I am not a part of, OregonDuck flops a straight flush against VinDiesel and takes a decent sized amount of chips from the Table Captain.

Finally, our table is nine-handed.

I like the easily digestible reports from the tournaments. Good way to break up the story.
I do hope the run good comes through for you, though.

2024 WSOP: June 1, Event 5C Mystery Millions Bounty NLHE (part 3 of 6)
An ace on the river seems like the best possible card for my A-Q … but appearances can be deceiving … and my opponent’s hand draws gasps from the table

I am in the small blind, and I have A-K. SurferDude limps, RedBeard raises, I decide to just call and SurferDude calls. My thinking here is that while A-K is a big hand preflop, it is still essentially an unmade hand. Let’s just see a flop, and if there is an ace or king then I can step on the gas pedal. The flop is J-4-2. RedBeard bets and I just fold. No need to lose my mind.

On the next hand I lose my mind.

Some of the details are a little hazy, but here is my best recollection.

I think there was a middle position bet. I have A-Q and this time I raise. SurferDude is in the big blind and he just calls. The original raiser also calls. The flop is 8-3-3 and the turn is a 4.

There is either little betting action or no betting action on these two streets (my notes don’t say). At this point I only have ace high. The river is an ace. My A-Q is now a made hand. The ace on the river is the best card possible for me in terms of how much it improves my hand. I don’t know it yet, but it was actually the worst possible card in the deck for me.

SurferDude bets. I raise. SurferDude puts me all-in. I call.

SurferDude turns over his cards and there are gasps from the other players. SurferDude has 3-3. He flopped quad 3s. It’s Surf’s Up for SurferDude. It’s Wipeout at the hands of a 20-foot-high wave for me.

I’m out of the tournament. I wish SurferDude good luck, and then I do the Walk of Shame (exiting during such an early level).

2024 WSOP: June 1, Event 5C Mystery Millions Bounty NLHE (part 4 of 6)
I tell myself what can you do when you have top pair strong kicker against quads … I give myself a pass … Upon further review, I think I played the river very poorly … 3-3 has been the nuts so far on this trip

As I get to the ballroom doors I chuckle and think to myself, what are you going to do when someone flops quads against you.

My next thought is to recall one of my opponents from yesterday’s tournament. During a break I was talking to RecentRetiree yesterday and he told me that he was getting no premium hands the entire tournament but he was still alive because on multiple occasions he had flopped sets. I was aware that he had flopped sets of threes on multiple occasions, and I told him that 3-3 was the nuts for him.

Apparently 3-3 is absolutely the nuts since SurferDude just had that hand become quad 3s to bust me.

The next thought going through my head is the fact that I sure do have a flair for the dramatic when I bust.

In event #3, shortly after the money bubble burst, I was on fumes and went all-in with J-10 suited. I got a bunch of callers. I flopped both straight and flush draws. I have a boatload of outs, and if I hit any of them my stack becomes mildly playable. I miss on the turn and river but at least there was a dramatic sweat.

In my next tournament I am eliminated when my aces get cracked by kings.

In my next tournament I am eliminated in the monster 400,000+ chip pot that could have made me tournament chip leader if the board had paired. I was behind two players who had a straight before the river, but I had a ton of outs that would give me a full house. I missed, but it was high drama.

And today I go out when I lose to quads.

Maybe pokernews.com should assign a reporter to follow my tables since I am good for fireworks.

The next thought going through my mind is that in today’s event in very short order the player to my immediate left (OregonDuck) flopped a straight flush (not against me), and the player two to my left (SurferDude) flopped quads (against me). This triggers a memory from yesterday’s tournament when Ninja called our table “The Table of Death” because of all the huge hands that kept taking place. Now I wonder, does The Table of Death follow me around?

At this point, I am once again back in line to register for another flight of the Mystery Millions tournament (tomorrow’s 5D). Thank you, may I have another. Whack! The line is quite a bit longer than it has been up to now, but it is not horrible. As I am standing in the registration line my mood goes from light to a bit darker. The more I think about it, the more I think I made a mistake in my bust-out hand. A big mistake. A terrible mistake. As I replay the hand in my head, I think that it was unnecessary and reckless on my part to get it all-in after the river.

When the ace hit on the river on an 8-3-3-4-A board, all I was thinking was, “Wheeeeeee. I got there. Best possible card for me.”

What I should have been thinking of was all the hands that my opponent in the big blind could reasonably have that could beat me. Could my opponent have 8-8? Yes. Could my opponent have 4-4? Yes. Could my opponent have a 3? Yes, if it’s a suited A-3, suited K-3, maybe suited Q-3. Could my opponent have 3-3? Probably unlikely since how often do you see quads, but it’s certainly in the big blind’s calling range. Could my opponent have two pair? Yes, especially A-4, A-8. I did not think through the fact that the flop and turn absolutely smash a big blind’s calling range. These are all things that my poker training site has been hammering into my head for the past five months. I must have a hard head, because I completely forgot to go through this process because I got so excited to hit my ace on the river. I lost track of the fundamentals I have been studying.

Should I have folded to SurferDude’s initial bet on the river. Of course not. I did just improve to top pair very good kicker. If you’re going to fold to one bet when you hit your best possible card then why are you still in the hand. This was a clear call.

My mistake was raising. I have a nice made hand. But it’s not the nuts. It’s not even close. There are all kinds of sets that are possible, not to mention all of the possible full houses on the paired board. A-K still beats my A-Q, although I don’t think SurferDude plays A-K the way he did pre-flop, but maybe. Two pairs still beat me. I needed to play a small to medium sized pot after the river. Playing for my entire stack was foolish.

Besides being wrong to raise rather than call, my other mistake was that I quickly called the all-in bet. I did not take hardly any time to think the hand through. I just thought I paired my ace and called it off waaaaaay too fast. On a hand this important I need to take my time.

I sprung leaks in my game all over the place on this hand. I am humbled by the game.

My poker inexperience completely showed on this hand. If you want a primer on what not to do when you hit your river ace on a board that is great for the big blind, just show a video of what I did this hand.

What really surprises me from today’s tourney is how impatient I was. Patience is normally one of my biggest strengths at the poker table. Today, when I got down to 33,000 very early, I felt restless and impatient. I wanted – really wanted -- to get back to my starting stack. What I should have been thinking was that I still had a ton of big blinds at that time. No need to rush. Yet when I did in fact get my chips back up to my starting stack, I still got impatient/undisciplined and played for stacks on my bust-out hand. I don’t know what happened to me today. It was like watching someone else play my hands. I lost my mind today.

I have a long way to go in my poker development. Still, losing to quads does at least give me a pretty interesting story to tell. Not a story I’m proud of, but an interesting hand nonetheless.

2024 WSOP: June 1, Event 5C Mystery Millions Bounty NLHE (part 5 of 6)
Drowning my sorrows in escargot … "massage parlor" is the punchline … a poker service dog … Dr Pepper as a metaphor of my day

Now, what do I do with so much free time after busting out early? In 2019 when I had an early knockout, I went to Mon Ami Gabi to get their escargot. I love escargot and of all the places I’ve ever had it, Mon Ami Gabi’s is the best I’ve ever tasted.



When I get there (it’s in the Paris hotel, so short walk for my still gimpy leg and heel) I am told there will be a 15-minute wait if I want to eat outside, or it will be close to right away if I am OK eating inside. I say I am OK with eating inside. The wait ends up being 10-15 minutes, and they seat me outside. From where I am seated, I can see the Bellagio fountain show.



I order the wild escargots de Bourgogne (oven-roasted snails, garlic-herb butter) along with the steak frites classique (maître d’hotel butter).



The escargot come with some sort of looooong bread thingee (not an elegant turn of the phrase, but I forget what the waiter called it), but the bread thingee is key because it allows you to mop up and eat all of the excess garlic-herb butter. It is exceptional: 10/10. I mop up every drop of the garlic-herb butter. I do everything but lick the serving dish clean. Hell, make it 11/10.



The steak is solid. The meat by itself is just a 7.5, but the maître d’hotel butter is fantastic and brings the overall combination to an 8.5/10.



After eating so much for lunch I don’t know if dinner is in my future.

One funny story from lunch. The table next to me has eight boisterous Asian women. They are very loud and are having a great time. They are speaking a foreign language with very infrequent bursts of English. At one point, one of them is speaking very fast in the foreign language. She is very excitable in the telling of her tale which ends with two words in English – “massage parlor” – which causes the entire table to explode with laughter.

So now what to do. I decide to walk to the Horseshoe to find one of the ballrooms that holds WSOP tournaments in case I ever get sent there. On my previous trip to the Horseshoe I did not find this specific ballroom. Today I find it, and there are overflow players from the Mystery Millions event playing. I only poke my head in for a short period of time, but I get two stories out of it.

In the first couple of minutes I am there, I walk by a table when a player yells out, “Floor!” There is some sort of dispute at the other end of the table from where the player who called for the floor is sitting. A floor person comes over and speaks to the dealer. The floor person then calls for a different floor. The second floor person comes over, listens to the details and says the offending player’s hand is going to be killed but the action can then continue, plus there is talk of some sort of penalty. This seems fairly definitive, but then this second floor decides to call for a third floor person. The third floor person arrives (she seems like the senior floor), is given the details, and she rules that the offending player’s hand is killed. She says nothing about a penalty. The offending player seems confused and asks if he can play the next hand. Floor #3 says yes, he can play the next hand. Vanessa Kade (whose live streams I used to follow when she was just starting out) is at this table, but she is at the other end of the table far away from the offending player.

As I am getting ready to exit this ballroom, I see a poker player who has a service dog. An older gentleman asks the player what the service dog is for, and the player tells him. I can’t hear what was said, but the older gentleman and I are both leaving at the same time, so I ask him what the answer was. Apparently, the poker player has a lot of anxiety, and the service dog calms him. The service dog can identify when anxiety is spiking, and when that happens the dog leans up against the player to calm him. This seems to me like it would be exploitable if you were seated at the poker table next to him and man’s best friend.

As long as I am at the Horseshoe, I go over to the main poker room where the big events take place. I get there and I see that the semifinals of the Event #6 $25,000 Heads-Up No-Limit Hold’em Championship are going on (Artur Martirosian versus Darius Samual, and Faraz Jaka versus Nikolai Mamut). I take some pictures for my 2+2 thread and then I head out.

I grab a cab back to my hotel. Once I get back to my hotel room, I realize I did not last long enough to drink the Dr Pepper I brought with in my backpack. Now seems like a good time to drink it. I open it up and it explodes with fizz landing all over the floor. This seems like a pretty apt metaphor for what I did on my bust-out hand today.

2024 WSOP: June 1, Event 5C Mystery Millions Bounty NLHE (part 6 of 6)
Even Mrs. rppoker – who knows very little about poker -- thinks I get knocked out of tourneys in epic, dramatic fashion

When I talk to Mrs. rppoker this evening, I tell her about my bust-out hand. I tell her how I paired my ace on the river but lost to quads. I tell her I played it badly and should not have allowed it to get to the point where I was put all-in. She ignores the part about me playing it badly, and she says of both my 2019 WSOP and my 2024 WSOP, “You seem to get knocked out of tournaments in tons of crazy ways where your opponents either have insanely good hands or almost impossible stuff keeps happening to you when you have the better hand. Is this normal?”

For me, it does seem to be the norm. My sample size is admittedly extremely small, but for me there truly are monsters under the bed with alarming frequency.

This is great stuff. I don't know if you invite feedback/criticism on lines and hands or would prefer just to tell your story without interruptions from the peanut gallery. I'm prone to being a know-it-all sometimes. If I'm overstepping my bounds, please let me know and I will try to shut up.

Overall I think being in some of these murky spots is just a sign of inexperience, which you were very upfront about. It's not that your thought process is bad or that you're making nonsensical plays, but more that you haven't played a lot of tournaments and thus are encountering a lot of situations for the first time. It's hard to handle weird situations when they feel new and undefined to you. In the AQ spot, the paired rag board actually hits the BB a lot harder than it hits you. Running into quads specifically was very unlucky, but he can just as easily have 53s and take a similar line. Often times we are good when we spike the A on the river. Actually, we're often good here BEFORE we hit the ace, but when we get re-raised in that spot, it's time to stop and think about what our opponent has.

In poker I think we want to strive to play everybody's hand, not just ours. When we know what they have, that makes our life easier. It opens doors for us to get away from showdown value when we're beat or find wins when we're supposed to lose the hand. 'I have a good hand, but I know he has a GREAT hand, so I'm getting out of the way.' Alternatively, 'I have a junk hand, but I can credibly pretend to have a good hand, therefore I'm telling this story to get the fold.'

What's really cool about the excerpt above is that you were almost instantly self-aware in terms of what you did wrong, why you did it, and how you might have handled it differently. That dialectical process is what drives improvement. The sign of a perma-fish is not making the initial mistake, but rather doubling down on the mistake. They'll 3-bet jam AT over a nit's open, lose to AK, and convince themselves, 'I'm so unlucky. Of course I had to run into AK there.' They will never to stop to think, 'Maybe AT and J4 are the same hand against a nit.' No reflection, no improvement. Yes reflection, yes improvement.

Yes, I encourage feedback/criticism. By putting my story on 2+2 it stops being just my story. It becomes our story. Any thoughtful direction anyone wants to take the thread is fine with me, and I am happy to engage.

2024 WSOP: June 2, Event 5D Mystery Millions Bounty NLHE (Part 1 of 8)
The K-K drought is finally over … the player next to me hates poker

This is getting downright bizarre. As I previously wrote, I went my entire 12 days of WSOP action in 2019 without being dealt K-K a single time. I have now played in four WSOP tournaments in 2024, and I still have not been dealt K-K. Not a complaint since I have been dealt A-A quite a bit, but it’s like someone with access to the live poker god-mode switch has decided it will be funny if I never get dealt kings.

I am back at the Paris. This is the last day 1 of the Mystery Millions. This is my last shot at making the money in this event. Last Chance Saloon. As I walk to my table, I see that it is immediately to the left of the table where yesterday’s implosion took place. I discuss strategy inside my head. Be patient. Be aware of hand ranges post flop based upon table position.

During my walk to my table, I passed a player wearing a Dr Pepper t-shirt. Is this a sign?

Level 1 (40,000 starting chips)

100/200/200

At the start of play, there are only six players at the table. Based upon preliminary table talk and the way these players act with chips, I make a way-too-early-to-be-trusted assessment that these are all recreational players. Plus, the first three hands, no one raises, which has never taken place at the more aggressive tables I have been playing at this week.

On the fourth hand, I tangle with a woman who has a polka dot purse, so we’ll call her MsPolkaDot. I am dealt A-10 two hearts. MsPolkaDot calls. The flop is 8-5-2 rainbow, no hearts. Given how timid the table has been the first three hands, I lead out with a bet. MsPolkaDot calls. The turn is a 9. I check. MsPolkaDot bets big, and I fold. When I push my cards in, my A unintentionally flips over. MsPolkaDot then shows that she had 5-5 and flopped a set. I don’t realize it yet, but this hand in indicative of a couple of things about MsPolkaDot: 1) she is a set flopping machine, and 2) she unnecessarily shows her cards all of the time when she gets her opponent to fold, which makes it very easy to see how she is playing.

What quickly becomes clear in level 1 is that MsPolkaDot is a loose passive player who is something of a calling station. She is spewing chips away. I just had the bad luck to run into her flopping a huge hand.

The next hand I get involved in is when I am in middle position and have A-6 suited. I bet. Ms. PolkaDot calls. The flop comes A-8-3. I bet and she, surprisingly, folds. This is the first time I have seen her fold to a post-flop bet.

End of level 1: 36,200 chips

Level 2

200/300/300

I am dealt 5-5 in the small blind and call. Time to set mine. The flop is seen four-handed.

K-K-10.

Not what I was hoping for. I fold to a bet.

I am dealt 6-6 in the cut off. I bet into an unopened pot and everyone folds.

I get dealt K-K. The drought is over. After never getting dealt K-K in my entire 2019 WSOP and never getting dealt K-K in my first four WSOP tourneys this year, I finally have K-K. Even better, the player to my right in middle position (he is wearing a sleeveless t-shirt and is sporting very muscular arms so we’ll call him Muscles) bets 700 chips. I raise to 2,000. MsPolkaDot calls as does Muscles.

The flop comes 2-4-6 rainbow. I bet 3,500. Both players fold. Muscles shows he had 10-10.

This hand gets Muscles and me talking. I learn that Muscles owns a handful of auto repair stores with a partner, but in his previous career he was a Las Vegas poker dealer for 20 years at Treasure Island and Caesars Palace. Then he says something peculiar. He says, “I hate poker.” He doesn’t care for the environment.

I ask him if he hates poker, why is he playing in this tournament. He says he plays in a low stakes home game that is more about busting balls than it is about poker. He says he won his seat in today’s tournament from his home game.

By this time, I have noticed some things about other players at the table. A guy wearing a hoodie with the name of a financial services company (we’ll call him Wall Street) mini tanks every time the action is on him, even when he folds into an unopened pot. This is slightly annoying. Two to my left is a player with perfect hair, which I originally name PerfectHair, but later I learn that he is a professional poker player from France so his name will be FrenchPro. He arrived slightly late to the table, but it is already becoming apparent that he is an aggressive bettor.

We are now eight-handed.

Muscles asks me what I had (K-K) on the hand in which he folded 10-10. I tell him I will share that information once one of us gets knocked out. “That’s fair,” he says.

I am dealt A-Q UTG, and I bet 1,000. The tightest player at the table (he has an alligator on his polo style shirt so we’ll call him Gator) calls as does Muscles in the big blind. The flop is Q-3-8. I have top pair great kicker so I bet 1,500. Gator calls. Muscles folds.

The turn is K. Check-check.

The river is A. I have two pair. I bet 3,000. Gator folds.

End of level 2: 44,500 chips.

2024 WSOP: June 2, Event 5D Mystery Millions Bounty NLHE (Part 2 of 8)
Erick Lindgren joins the table … FrenchPro gets his picture taken by a media photographer … Lindgren and Muscles have a history of some sort … It’s raining kings

Level 3

200/400/400

A player wearing a Fish 101 hat arrives to bring us to nine-handed. Fish 101 is Erick Lindgren.



I get dealt A-Q again. Muscles limps for 400 from UTG. I raise to 1,600. Gator calls. Muscles calls.

The flop is Q-5-2. I bet 2,500 and get two folds.

A media photographer stops at our table and takes a picture of FrenchPro. I don’t know who FrenchPro is, but apparently the photo media does. I start up a conversation with FrenchPro and learn that he is a poker professional, he is from France, and he is here for the entire WSOP. This is his third WSOP.

It is clear that Muscles and Erick Lindgren know each other. Muscles shows Lindgren a picture he has in his phone, says something and the two of them laugh.

The table which earlier seemed so promising, weak and rec heavy has now added two professionals. Things have gotten tougher.

I now have a read on another player who has gray hair, a gray shirt and gray pants. We’ll call him MrGray, and what I have concluded about him is that he does not like to play post flop and he folds to aggression a lot.

End of Level 3: 47,000 chips.

Level 4

300/500/500

I chat Lindgren up, and I ask him what he does for a living. He responds, “Not much.” Instead he talks about his children, and we exchange kid raising stories. This is the perfect poker discussion. I am bluffing that I don’t know who he is. He is bluffing that he is just a regular guy/no one famous.

I get dealt K-K. Wow, the K-K drought really is over. I bet and everyone folds. Unfortunate.

I am dealt AK. I bet and receive four calls. The flop is a dream.

K-K-A.

The deck is absolutely smashing me today. With four other players still to act I just check, figuring someone will take the lead for me. Nope, everyone checks. The turn is a Q, and I again check. Everyone else checks. WTF, at all of my tables the previous four days, someone would have taken an aggressive betting line by now. The river is a J. At this point I have to put chips into the middle. I bet. Everyone folds. I am annoyed that I did not get a single post-flop chip on this hand.

I get dealt K-K. Again. Third time today and it’s only the beginning of level 4. It’s raining kings. Even better, Lindgren raises to 1,200 (four times the big blind). I pop it to 3,600. Erick calls. The flop is Q-10-7. Lindgren checks, I bet, he folds. I am up to 57,200.

I am running blazing hot. When I have an ace with a strong kicker, I flop either top pair great kicker, an ace, or something even better. K-K three times. The unfortunate thing is that other than when French Pro, Erick Lindgren and MsPolkaDot are in the hand and you can get some action, it’s tough to get a lot of chips out of the rest of the table. In particular, it is unfortunate that none of my big hands have come against MsPolkaDot who is massively overcalling medium made hands post flop. If I had received the tsunami of great hands I have seen today during any of my previous tournaments in which aggression was the name of the game by my opponents, I’d probably have been tournament chip leader. I shouldn’t complain. My chip stack has increased very nicely. Doesn’t mean I don’t greedily wish I had even more.

2024 WSOP: June 2, Event 5D Mystery Millions Bounty NLHE (Part 3 of 8)
Lindgren calls a river bet for most of his chips and he gets the bad news … soon thereafter Lindgren is gone at the hands of MsPolkaDot, the three-of-a-kind queen … The very interesting back story of how Lindgren and Muscles know each other … Salami and cheese tastes like lobster


The chips do start flying, however, when FrenchPro and Lindgren collide in a hand. There is heavy betting on every street (especially the river) on a board that is …

… A-3-K-7-6 no flush possibility.

After the river card FrenchPro goes all-in and Lindgren calls.

FrenchPro has A-3 for a flopped two pair.

Lindgren has K-4 for second-best pair, bad kicker. Did I read that right?

I am really surprised by Lindgren’s willingness to play for most of his stack with such nominal holdings. If he had K-7, K-6 or K-3 for two pair, his call on the river would make more sense. Could I have misread his hand and he had two pair which makes his call defensible? I don’t think I misread his hand, but I suppose it’s possible. But if he had K-4 as I believe he did, the call just makes no sense to me. All of the betting on earlier streets also makes no sense to me if Lindgren had K-4. Did Lindgren misread his hand, thinking he had two pair when he didn’t? Did Lindgren just donk off a ton of chips with second pair, terrible kicker? Something seems really amiss here. I can’t wrap my head around the hand from Lindgren’s perspective. Is this some super duper high level GTO thinking that is beyond my capacity to comprehend? Does Lindgren think he has some soul read gone awry on FrenchPro? The only hand that Lindgren could have had that would make any sense is K-3 in which case he would have flopped a worse two pair than FrenchPro did, and it’s a cooler. But I feel fairly strongly that Lindgren showed K-4, in which case the line he took throughout the hand seems baffling to me. Either I misread it or he misplayed it. The only reason I even consider the possibility that I misread it is if I correctly wrote down that he had K-4, the lines he took in this hand just make no sense to me. But what do I know, his career earnings are north of $10,000,000 while my paltry career poker earnings are still in the four figures. Regardless, he lost the hand and is now very low on chips. (I still believe he had K-4).

Very shortly thereafter (maybe even the next hand) Lindgren goes all-in with 7-7. Muscles calls with A-6. Ms. PolkaDot with KJ calls. MsPolkaDot, the three-of-a-kind machine, catches runner-runner J-J for trips, and we bid adieu the world-famous Erick Lindgren.

Once Lindgren is gone, I ask Muscles what the picture was that he showed Lindgren, when the famous poker pro first joined the table. Muscles shows me the picture. It is Muscles dealing the final table with Lindgren and Justin Bonomo head’s up in a 2008 WSOP tournament ($5,000 Mixed Hold’em).

Meanwhile, MsPolkaDot continues to keep showing her cards at showdown when an opponent first shows their superior hand. She is voluntarily giving away so much information. She is still alive because she keeps flopping sets and/or miracle rivers for big amounts, which she then spews away with middling holdings. Rinse, lather, repeat. It keeps happening over and over and over.

End of level 4: 56,100 chips.

We go on break. I eat my salami and cheese sandwich, which tastes like lobster when you have just been smashed by the deck the first four levels of play. Not to sound unappreciative, but I wish this had happened in later levels when much bigger pots can be won. That said, thank you WSOP dealers for the avalanche of big hands.

2024 WSOP: June 2, Event 5D Mystery Millions Bounty NLHE (Part 4 of 8)
Muscles triples up but still says he hates poker … MsPolkaDot keeps hitting sets … A talkative poker pro and a woman dripping in gold and diamonds join the table … My busted flush draw still wins

Level 5

300/600/600

My read on FrenchPro has gone from aggressive bettor to aggressive bettor who loves to put opponents to tough, big decisions.

Muscles then experiences a dream hand. He is three-handed with 10-10 when the flop comes 10-7-2 rainbow. Incredibly, both of his opponents lose their minds and go all-in before he even has to act. After he almost triples up, I say to Muscles, “So, now you love poker?” He emphatically says, “No.” I don’t know what poker did to Muscles in the past, but all is not forgiven.

MsPolkaDot, the set flopping machine, gets in a hand with 7-7. The flop has a 7 in the window, and she busts Gator in the hand.

FrenchPro has about 120,000 chips and is starting to control the table. Nonetheless, his kind, easy-going, friendly demeanor makes him very likable.

I don’t realize it yet, but I have started to go fairly card dead.

End of level 5: 54,600 chips.

Level 6

400/800/800
In the big blind I have 7-9 suited. No one has raised (I think there was a limper and a small blind call), so I just check and see three free cards. I whiff the flop and fold to a bet.

Around this time, we get two new players.

The first is a guy in a PGT poker hat. He is very talkative. Non-stop talker in a good way. Friendly. Entertaining. It is clear from his talking that he is a poker pro. He loves to hold court and he later says his name is Arthur, so we’ll call him KingArthur.

(Editor’s note: After doing some digging online, I think I know who KingArthur is. I can’t say for sure since he was wearing a hat when we were at the same table, but some of his table talk about himself assists me in my online search. I feel pretty confident that I know his real name, but not certain enough to include it in this trip report. If I have identified him correctly, he is not a famous name (to me) but he has surpassed $2,500,000 in lifetime poker earnings).

The second new player is an older woman who is wearing an expensive looking sweat suit with lots of bedazzle. Her wrists are dripping with gold and diamonds. We’ll call her Expensive.

The player to my left is wearing a spiderman t-shirt. I haven’t really noticed him all that much to this point, which is odd since he is to my immediate left. He hasn’t played in a ton of hands, and when he has been in a hand it seems like he has not gotten to showdown very often, probably because FrenchPro is to his immediate left. I suspect that FrenchPro has been pushing him around.

Spiderman finally has a hand he goes all the way with. He has K-J and there is some betting preflop and postflop (three undercards). The betting goes wild when a J comes on the turn. Spiderman has top pair good kicker. Eventually he is all-in and King Arthur shows A-A. Spiderman doesn’t improve, and he is out of the tournament. King Arthur now has a ton of chips. He and FrenchPro are the two big stacks at the table.

I am dealt As-Qs. First premium hand I’ve had for a little bit. I bet 2,000 from UTG. Muscles calls from the big blind. Muscles always calls a single bet when he is in the big blind. He could have anything. The flop is K-K-4 two spades. With the nut flush draw, I bet and Muscles calls. There is no spade on the turn. Check-check. There is no spade on the river. Check-check.

I show my As-Qs for a busted flush draw. Muscles shows 5s-6s for a worse busted flush draw.

I won the hand? I won the hand! I scoop the chips with ace high, but I silently lament that the flush did not get there. Since it would have been flush versus flush, I am certain I would have won a huge pot instead of the slightly-decent-sized pot just won.

End of level 6: 56,000 chips.

2024 WSOP: June 2, Event 5D Mystery Millions Bounty NLHE (Part 5 of 8)
MsPolkaDot’s superpower is she constantly “gets there.” … Expensive’s straight gets chased down by FrenchPro’s flush, and the lady is not happy … Muscles is unhappy … FrenchPro says he does not live anywhere … WallStreet gets knocked out when A-10 beats his K-K

Level 7

500/1,000/1,000

There is now a new player to my left. He is wearing a hoodie with a bathtub duckie on it and the word “quack” on it. Obviously, we’ll call him Quack. I will eventually learn that Quack is a poker pro.

Meanwhile, MsPolkaDot plays A-4 from UTG and she makes a straight on the turn. She wins a good-sized pot from KingArthur. MsPolkaDot’s superpower is she constantly “gets there.” At least it’s her superpower today.

Shortly after that, Expensive loses a big pot to FrenchPro when she turns a straight, but the Frenchman rivers a flush. After seeing the cards tabled, Expensive seems upset that FrenchPro called her turn bet with nothing more than a flush draw.

Around this time Muscles has to fold to a bet and a raise. When the flop comes, he is upset. Obviously, he would have flopped huge had he stayed in the hand. Muscles says to me, “Sometimes I hate this game.” I respond, “I thought you ALWAYS hate this game.” Muscles glumly says, “True.”

At one point there is a slow moving hand on the other side of the table and Muscles and I engage FrenchGuy in conversation. One of us asks him where in France he lives. FrenchPro says nowhere. We ask if he lives in the United States now. He responds that he doesn’t live anywhere. He says he simply follows the poker circuit from place to place. I think to myself that he is a poker nomad.

I am card dead and fold my way through the level.

End of level 7: 53,500 chips.

Level 8

600/1,200/1,200

KingArthur has continued with his poker banter, although most of it has been confined to the other end of the table. Every now and then he will ask FrenchPro a question. He always starts from across the table, “Hey, France …” and asks his question. Some time passes, and then, “Hey France ...” and he asks something else.

The most recent question was, “Hey France, how many bullets are you on in this tournament.” FrenchPro says, “five.” KingArthur says, “Me too.

A few minutes later, “Hey France, what’s your name so I don’t have to keep calling you France.” They exchange names and then KingArthur announces, “I think I’ll keep calling you France. I like that better.” Everyone laughs.

A bit later, “Hey France, what’s your high mark in chips in your other bullets.” FrenchPro says 120,000 (although he has way more than that today). KingArthur says his high-water mark was 290,000. Quack jumps into the conversation and says he was up to 700,000 in one of his bullets. KingArthur says, “And you didn’t bag chips?” Quack says, “No, I went card dead after that.”

I talk with Quack a bit, and it is clear that he is a professional poker player. I ask him how long he’ll be at the WSOP. He says he’ll be here for a month, go home for a bit and then he’ll return for the Main Event.

My table currently has two pros to my immediate left (Quack and FrenchPro) and another at the other end of the table (KingArthur). Plus, I suspect that Expensive, who is two to my right, might be a pro as well.

On the last hand of the level, Wall Street is all-in against FrenchPro. Wall Street has K-K. FrenchPro has A-10 suited. This hand is eerily similar preflop to a hand I will play later in this tournament (editor’s note: foreshadowing). FrenchPro binks an A on the flop. Wall Street does not hit a two-outer on the turn or river, and he is out of the tournament.

End of level 8: 50,500 chips

We go on break. I contemplate what has happened so far. After getting smashed by the deck in levels 1-4, I did not have a lot of playable hands in levels 5-8. I have been patient during these last four levels and haven’t spewed chips off. I have a better than starting stack chip count. The one problem with my patience of late is that when/if I do get a big hand, people are going to be wary when I get involved in the betting. I am noticing that as I sit in the hallway outside the ballroom that my allergies are acting up, and I realize I forgot to take my allergy meds this morning.

2024 WSOP: June 2, Event 5D Mystery Millions Bounty NLHE (Part 6 of 8)
I win a coin flip and bust Muscles … Johnny World joins the table, which now his five poker pros … I bluff Johnny World … MsPolkaDot will not go away

Level 9

1,000/1,500/1,500

I still have almost 34 big blinds. I can still pick my spots.

There are no spots for me this level. No pairs. No aces even with bad kickers. No paint. No suited cards. No connector cards. I am crawling through the sand in a desert of bad cards. If I ever get a quality hand, I will probably suspect it is a mirage.

The only memorable moments relate to the two women at the table.

I learn from Expensive that she has been playing professionally since 2009. She also tells me she is from Istanbul, Turkey.

MsPolkaDot played 2-2 from UTG and made a set on the flop. Of course she did.

End of level 9: 42,500 chips.

Level 10

1,000/ 2,000/2,000

I have 21 big blinds. I would love to get a playable hand.

Finally, one appears. I have A-Q suited. There is a min raise (I think by KingArthur, but I’m not sure). Muscles, who has been hurt by a bunch of MsPolkaDot’s rungood (“she is my nemesis,” he says), is down to 17,000 chips and he goes all-in. I go all-in. The original min raiser folds. Muscles has 4-4. It’s a coin flip.

The board goes A-7-10-Q-3. Muscles is out. I promised him earlier I would tell him what I had in the K-K (me) versus 10-10 (Muscles) hand we tangled. I turn my back to FrenchPro (I don’t want him to know) I lean near Muscles’ ear and I whisper, “Kings.” Muscles nods his head, pleased that he folded correctly, and says, “Thanks.” And then he is gone, seemingly relieved he is done playing a game he claims to hate.

I now have a playable 68,000 chips. Playable does not mean large. The definition of large at this table is French Guy with approximately 250,000 chips and KingArthur with approximately 170,000 chips.

MsPolkaDot runs 9-9 into someone else’s A-A. At first, I think she is out. It turns out that she has maybe 14,000 chips remaining. Crumbs. Crumbs that will eventually be highly relevant.

Another pro joins the table. He is seated next to KingArthur and their conversation makes it clear they reside in the same professional poker ecosystem. I think it may have been Johnny World, but I’m not positive (I will eventually be 93.2% certain). There are now five professional poker players at my table. I am not one of them.

I get dealt K-Q suited and bet. King Arthur and NewGuyPro call. The flop gives me a flush draw. It goes check-check-check. The turn is a blank. I fire out a bet with my flush draw and both poker pros fold. I have 77,000 chips. I wish I knew for sure if NewGuyPro (who didn’t last long at the table) was Johnny World, because how cool does it sound to say I bluffed Johnny World with only a draw? Screw it, when I tell my friends the story, I’m saying I bluffed Johnny World. I see a video a few days later on the daily Daniel Negreanu videos with Johnny World in it and now I am even more convinced it was Johnny World who I bluffed. I put it at 93.2 percent likely that it was Johnny World. Either way, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. I bluffed Johnny World.

I can’t read my notes as to what cards they had, but MsPolkaDot knocks out Expensive in a battle of two very small stacks. MsPolkaDot will not go away.

Right after that hand, a floor walks by and our table hears his walkie talkie say that a player just went to the bathroom and took his chips in his pocket with them. Obviously our table talks about this for a while.

End of level 10: 72,000 chips.

2024 WSOP: June 2, Event 5D Mystery Millions Bounty NLHE (Part 7 of 8)
I try and fail to knock out Ms PolkaDot when I have A-K versus her Q-J … and then MsPolkaDot goes on a rush … meanwhile I keep going all-in light and manage to keep up with the blinds

Level 11

1,000/2,500/2,500

Remember when I wrote earlier that I thought MsPolkaDot had been knocked out but it turned out she had crumbs left and that it was relevant? Well, now is when it becomes relevant. She has 30,000 chips. She goes all-in. I have A-K offsuit. At first, I ask the dealer for a count, but two seconds later I say, “Never mind counting. I’m calling.”

She has Q-J offsuit.

I am ahead, but she has two live cards. Plus, I have seen this horror show unfold all day long where she keeps getting there.

This hand is no exception. She flops a queen. I never improve. I am down to 42,500 chips. Not going to lie, this one hurts. Had I won the hand I would have had around 110,000 chips. That would have been 44 big blinds. I would have room to play poker with that stack. Instead, I have 17 big blinds, which is not a death sentence, but I’m running out of time.

Shortly after this hand, MsPolkaDot is all-in against FrenchPro and she hits a card on the turn to come from behind and win. She then gets a rush of cards and looks to be up around 200,000 chips.

I, meanwhile have lost a small and big blind when I have rags and have to fold to bets.

I am under 15 big blinds.

I am dealt A-9 in middle position, and I go all-in. Everyone folds. I have 42,500 chips.

Then a pro versus pro confrontation unfolds. Quack is all-in against KingArthur. Quack has Q-Q. KingArthur has A-K. The flop comes A-K-rag. Two pair for KingArthur. Quack does not hit his two-outer on the turn or river, and he is out of the tournament.

I post and lose my blinds. Then I have K-6 suited from middle position and I go all-in. No one calls. I have 42,500 chips.

At this point I am going all-in and winning just enough to keep even with the blinds.

Three players at my table get knocked out in fast order (one double knockout) and we are six-handed for the time being, which is a gut punch since the blinds come around so much quicker.

End of level 11: 42,500 chips.

Level 12

1,500/3,000/3,000

I give up my blinds. Then I am dealt A-10 and go all-in. Everyone folds. I have 42,500 chips.

I am battling, scrapping and clawing just to maintain 42,500 chips.

I am dealt A-J suited. There is a raise and a call, before me. I go all-in. Both players fold. I have 62,000 chips.

Then the unthinkable happens. I am in the big blind and I get a walk. I can count on one hand the number of times I have seen anyone get a walk in the five days I have been playing here at the 2024 WSOP. FrenchPro looks at me and he has the tiniest hint of a smile. I think he is happy for me that I am staying alive for the moment.

I tell FrenchPro, “I am hanging on by a thread.” FrenchPro is confused and asks me to explain what hanging on by a thread means. I explain and he nods.

2024 WSOP: June 2, Event 5D Mystery Millions Bounty NLHE (Part 8 of 8)
Multitasker joins the table, wins a bunch of chips and cops an attitude … Late reg bugs me … I’m all-in against K-K but I have outs

A new tournament poker professional is seated next to me. He has a lot of chips. He also has an expensive electronic set up that he places on the table. He is playing in a WSOP online tourney at the same time as the live tournament we are seated at. We’ll call him Multitasker. He says he has already doubled up in the online tourney, and, as we speak, he says he has been dealt A-A in the online tourney.

Multitasker wins some big hands at our live table, and in the blink of an eye he is the table chip leader. We are close to the break and it is announced that the chip leader at every table should do the chip color up. Our dealer presents a chip tray to Multitasker for the chip color-up job.

Multitasker abrasively refuses, saying he is in two tournaments and has too much to do to take on the color-up task. FrenchPro calmly and quietly tells the dealer that he will handle the chip color up.

End of Level 12: 62,000 chips.

We go on break. The line for late reg is long. I know late reg is allowed, but it bugs me. Here I am, fighting for my tournament life. I have killed myself to have 62,000 chips. And these late reg people will jump in now at the very end of late reg with 40,000 chips. In Flight 5B when this same scenario played out for me in terms of the amount of chips I had in level 13, on the first hand of the level, a late reg player had his 40,000 starting stack and he said he was looking for anything to get it in with for the double up or go home. He had 3-3 and sure enough he got it all-in preflop against someone who had two high over cards. As I watched this play out, I was really annoyed. I had fought through 12 levels to have 70,000 chips, and this poker pro does the equivalent of putting his bankroll on red at the roulette table. If he wins the coin flip, he will have more chips than me after one hand. He did not win the coin flip, but that’s not the point.

I hate that people can go this high variance late reg route to spin it up fast or go home. I think it diminishes the effort that I have exerted through 12 levels.

I understand it is allowed. I understand the WSOP does it to make as much money as possible. I understand it is standard practice, and the players who late reg are doing nothing wrong. I suppose you can even argue that this makes the payouts at the top that much bigger because of the enlarged prize pool. But from the standpoint to crowning a worthy champion, I think that someone should have to run the entire race from the start.

I also think that the whole massive rebuy environment is bad for someone who can’t fire every bullet possible like me. I think a lot of the hyper aggressive high variance and high risk/reward play that I see from some of the pros I have encountered this WSOP is encouraged because they can simply rebuy if they step on a landline. For someone like me who is not going to late reg if I get knocked out, it becomes more difficult to run the crazy bluffs that will either build a big chip stack or blow up in your face, since once I die each day I stay dead.

When I see players go for the immediate double up in level 13 and it works, giving them more chips than I battled 12 levels to get, it just feels so … unfair.

I wish there were more freezeouts than there are, but if I want to play a full schedule then I just need to deal with the late reg phenomenon.

OK, rant over. Time to get back to my precious, dwindling chips.

Level 13

2,000/4,000/4,000

Darn it. I finally moved out of the 42,500 chip territory, and the increased blinds mean I only have 15 and a half big blinds with my 62,000 chips.

I am in the blinds quickly where I get dealt rags and have to just fold to bets. That’s all it takes to drop me down to 52,000 chips.

KingArthur raises to 8,000. I have A-9 suited. KingArthur has been folding to my aggression. I go all-in. Multitasker, seated next to me, is giving his hand a looooong consideration. Finally, he asks for a count of my chips. The dealer does the count and says 52,000. Multitasker continues to take his time. He counts up 52,000 chips slowly and finally, seemingly reluctantly, he calls. KingArthur folds and shows an ace which I obviously am not happy to see since that is one of my outs. Multitasker turns over K-K.

I’ve got some work to do. I flop a 9, so now I have a couple more outs. I need some of MsPolkaDot’s “get there” superpower. I do not get there and I am out.

I look at FrenchPro and say, “I enjoyed playing against you.” He smiles back at me and offers a tip of his head in response.

As I walk out of the Paris poker ballroom, what I am thinking about is this bust-out hand and how similar it was to the last hand of level 8 when WallStreet was all-in with K-K, while FrenchPro had A-10 suited. In this instance there was an ace on the flop and the suited ace won. In my case the suited ace did not get there against K-K. Had I binked an ace to win the hand, I would have had 122,000 chips (30.5 big blinds) and then who knows what happens …

It wasn’t my time to get lucky.

I relate to this a lot. I had similar feelings in 2019 when I played the Colossus. I worked hard to put myself in position to potentially cash (I did not). Meanwhile there were people showing up at 7 or 8 PM with a starting stack looking to press every edge and take every gambling spot in hopes of instantly spinning up a day two stack. The WSOP is supposed to be a prestigious series, and here it felt more like a nightly rebuy tournament at the local card room.

It's inescapable to a point. Long reg periods mean more money for the venues, and venues like money. The WSOP Main, the marquee event in the series, allows day two registration now. Most events allow you to fire multiple bullets, sometimes across several days. Rec players can't escape this. It feels like the best we can do is carefully event select and understand that we're still going to face fresh stacks joining at the 11th hour looking to gamble. Not necessarily bad for our EV, but volatile.

From that perspective, I'd suggest that the Mystery Millions is going to skew especially gamble-y for a number of reasons. It has 30 minute levels, which is a relatively fast structure. The way the bounties work also encourages players to adopt more of a high-risk strategy. A typical mystery bounty event at Wynn or elsewhere will bag as soon as they hit the ITM%. You come back on day two and instantly start pulling envelopes when you knock people out.

The WSOP Mystery Millions does not bag all ITM players, but only a small fraction. So while they pay their usual 15% of the field, you need to make roughly the top 5% to advance to day 2 and actually have the opportunity to pull envelopes. The fact that it's a very hard tournament to bag incentivizes the pro types to fire, fire, and fire at it, and to do so with a very gamble-happy style in hopes of running up a huge stack. It's still a bracelet event with a tough field, but somewhat more gimmicky than the typical WSOP NLHE tournament.

DogFace, I agree with so much of what you wrote.

DogFace: "The WSOP is supposed to be a prestigious series, and here it felt more like a nightly rebuy tournament at the local card room."

rppoker: "This is exactly what I am talking about. I think the WSOP is losing track of what is supposed to matter and what makes it so great. The WSOP is, in my mind, supposed to be about crowning champions in the most prestigious events in the world. Instead, I think the WSOP is increasingly looking to maximize profitability at the expense of the prestige that makes it such an elite event. Already, they keep adding more and more and more events every year. Already, they are adding online events which is a departure from the old come to Vegas to win a bracelet makeup of the WSOP. And now there is late reg on steroids. Add it all up and bracelet winners are too common because of the rapidly growing volume of events, and the skill of the events is watered down by the let's-get-our-gamble-on nature of late reg. I will say this until I am blue in the face, I think that to earn a WSOP bracelet you should have to run the race from the very beginning. Winning WSOP bracelets still matters, but the more gimmicky they make the event the greater the chances that they move to a time in which the WSOP starts to lose some of its prestige. We aren't there yet, but I think the WSOP is starting to play with fire."

Dogface: "I'd suggest that the Mystery Millions is going to skew especially gamble-y for a number of reasons."

rppoker: "In hindsight, I agree with you on this. I picked the 12 days that I did because the dates worked especially well for me (I have to be home for both my wife's birthday and our anniversary which are about four weeks apart and both of which occur during the WSOP). Also, I saw that there were four flights of the Mystery Millions in a good price range for me, so I jumped at it. Unfortunately, when the schedule was first released I believe that structures were not available, so I didn't recognize how gamble-y the event might be. I still had a good time playing in all four Day 1s of it, but there are tournaments with much better structures that I could have selected. I didn't really get pressed hard by the blinds until approximately levels 11-13, which is exactly when late reg hits its peak. So, from what I saw, the most gamble-y part of the Mystery Millions tournament came when late reg was reaching peak levels. Unfortunately, I tended to be pretty card dead during these stages of the tournaments, so I was unable to take advantage of late reg players overplaying hands because of their go big or go home desire to spin it up fast."

The unfortunate thing is that no matter how many good ideas us recreational players have to make the playing field a bit more fair, the casinos are still going to ignore it and do whatever makes them the most money. Live poker tournaments are wildly popular all over the world, and people are entering (myself included) despite knowing fully well that sometimes I will only allow myself a single bullet.

While I don't necessarily agree with you that all bracelet events should be freezouts without any late reg, I do think that late registration periods should be significantly shortened, and the same for number of bullets you can fire into one event. It's very annoying when you eliminate a good player from a tournament, knowing fully well he will be back in 5 minutes with a full stack, and maybe even at the same seat.

2024 WSOP: June 3, 2024 (Part 1 of 2)
Calling an audible regarding the day’s agenda … No to cards in the Daily Deepstack, yes to a cabana by the pool … Alcohol meter: 2 (in a stunning upset) … The second coming of Hunter S. Thompson, sort of

My original road map for my WSOP called for me to play in a daily deepstack today. But after five straight days of WSOP bracelet events, many of which I went fairly deep in terms of levels played, I find myself feeling mentally fatigued. Not tired as in I’m falling asleep at the table. My body is fine with playing today, but my brain needs a break.

Thus, I call an audible. I won’t play in the daily deepstack today. I have bracelet events on the schedule for tomorrow and the day after, and I think a day off will allow me to be refreshed for those two events.

Today will be a pool day. I go down to the Signature pool and I get a cabana. I like the idea of writing the rough draft of the trip report of yesterday’s Mystery Million from the cabana. Yes, I could write up the results from my hotel room at no cost. But I like the sound of writing from a poolside cabana.

Plus, I have spent virtually no time this trip outside. All of my time has been spent in the Paris ballroom playing poker. After five days of feeling cold because of the Paris ballroom air conditioning, it feels good to sweat. The cabana shades me from the sun and even with the overhead fan running at full capacity it is still hot. I am from Illinois, the land of snow and cold, so I enjoy the experience of hot.

The cabana has a couch, TV and refrigerator. I put ESPN on the TV. A bikini-clad server comes by and I order lunch, which is a double cheeseburger with a fried egg, potato chips and a peanut butter cup cookie.

I also place an order that is very out of character. I order an alcoholic drink. I’m in a cabana by a swimming pool. A drink seems necessary. But I don’t like the taste of most alcohol. I almost never drink alcohol. I order something whose taste I can tolerate.

A strawberry daiquiri, easy on the alcohol.

Then I order a second one.

I am in Las Vegas with (a tiny bit of) alcohol in my system writing about my Vegas experiences. I am Hunter S Thompson (of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas writing fame). OK, fine. I am Hunter S Thompson with a girl drink in my hand. But this is as gonzo journalism as it gets with me.

I keep getting brain freeze when I drink my daiquiris. I am a lightweight.

As your attorney, I advise more daiquiris, then a trip to Planet 13 or similar.

They have hookers there?

Golddog and pig4bill,

I am afraid I have to disappoint you. Dispensaries and hookers are not in my wheelhouse. Definitely not rppoker or Mrs. rppoker approved.

This is pretty much a degen-free zone/thread

But if any of the young guns out there who are single and want to go full throttle degen, I'll be happy to subscribe, follow along and live vicariously through your experiences. Who's up for the challenge?

BigWhale, nice nuanced response. I am well aware that there will never be a world in which all bracelet events are freezeouts without any late reg. It would be my perfect poker utopia, but it's not going to happen. And even if I were king of the WSOP, I wouldn't make it happen. But I do wish there were more freezeouts than currently exist. In my perfect world there would be a 10-day stretch during the WSOP where you could play all NLH freezeouts in the $500-$1,500 entry fee sweet spot for recs, and the rest of the WSOP leave alone as-is. That way the pro freezeout crowd can get what it wants, and the rest of the series the late reg connoisseurs can fire their late bullets the way they do now. Everybody is happy.

Another option is if the level 1 starting stack is 40,000 chips, then late reg should get you something like 32,000 or something like that to reflect the blinds they would have lost if their chips were put in play during level 1. Again, I know this will never happen, but I don't understand why someone who buys in before the start of the tournament and doesn't show up on time gets their chips blinded off, but a late reg person gets the full starting allotment of chips.

2024 WSOP: June 3, 2024 (Part 2 of 2)
Life is short and must be embraced … I’m bad luck for Shaun Deeb … Mike Matusow and Dan Zack yuck it up … even the big dogs make mistakes

As I am writing in my private cabana by the pool, the TV is on ESPN and reports that former Dallas Cowboys OL Larry Allen has died at age 52. Back in my sports writing days I wrote a lengthy article about him. He was an all-time great who seemed almost superhuman as a player. It’s hard to comprehend that this Greek God of offensive linemen has died so young. Far too soon.

Life is short and must be embraced. This makes me think that this is exactly why I am following my poker dream even though I am so completely outgunned by my much, much, much more experienced poker opponents.

I finish my writing for the day, I get my bill for the cabana and charge it to my room. Then I head back up to my room. Once there, I realize I need to head over to the Paris. My hair is kind of a mess. I consider taking a shower. But I’m feeling lazy. Who am I trying to impress? I don’t know anyone. I put on some deodorant, change from my swim shorts into a pair of pants and throw on a new shirt. I don’t bother addressing my messy hair.

It's now early evening, and I grab a cab to the Paris because I need to register for tomorrow’s event #14 $1,000 Super Turbo Bounty No-Limit Hold’Em. Originally, when the plan was to play in a WSOP daily deepstack today, I figured I’d register for event #14 sometime while I was at the property. Since I decided to skip the daily deepstack, this trip to the Paris now becomes necessary.

This is the first time I have tried to register at this time, so I don’t know what I should expect as far as a line. I get there and find that there are zero people in line. Zero. This astonishes me. The registration lines have been so much shorter for me this year compared to what I experienced at the Rio during the 2019 WSOP. I can’t say definitively what the reason is. My theory is that it is because the Paris registration has so many more manned cages than the Rio did. When I offer this theory to the person who registers me, she says she thinks it is because so many people have registered online. Whatever the reason, I like it. I like it a lot.

I’m still not hungry for dinner, so I decide to try to kill some time in the hope that I eventually get hungry enough to eat something somewhere at the Paris. I go to the Paris poker ballroom and the Mystery Millions is down to less than 50 players, but the tables for this tournament are far away from the rail, too far to be able to see anything.

I wander a little, and I find Event #13, the Dealer’s Choice 10K. It’s a small field and it is famous pro heavy, so there are multiple tables right on the rail with big names in action. I decide the stick around a bit and watch.

I stand by the rail nearest the table that has the slimmed down Shaun Deeb and also Allen Kessler. The dealer’s choice is No Limit Hold’em. On the first hand I watch, Deeb with 4-8 gets it all in after the flop with two pair against his opponent’s flush draw. The flush draw gets there on the river and Deeb is out. Apparently, I am kryptonite for Deeb.

I see Jean Robert Bellande at a table near the rail. He has a goblet of wine on the table. He keeps leaning forward and putting his head in his hands for an extended period of time. It is not clear to me if he is upset or just trying to take a nap.

I then go to a table with Mike Matusow and Dan Shak. Matusow and Shak are in the middle of an animated conversation that they both find very funny. As best I can tell, it involves jacks and kings and the fact that I believe Shak misread his hand, yet won the hand anyway. That is what I think until a little bit later I go on WSOP.com and read a story about Zack eliminating an opponent who plays the wrong game, forgetting that an ace is a high card and not a low card in the low game they are playing. The details of this hand seem completely different than the story I observed Zack and Matusow describing. I think it is two separate hands, but I can’t say for sure. Regardless, it is clear that even the big dogs in a 10K are human and make mistakes. I check WSOP.com and see that Shak is third in chips.

Then I notice that Erick Lindgren is playing this 10K. I check online, and he is the tournament chip leader. Just yesterday he was in a $1,000 entry tourney at my table when he must have been slumming it. One day you get knocked out very early in a 1K, the next day you are the chip leader in a 10K during Level 7. Things change fast in tournament poker.