At the age of 62 (AARP members unite!), I have decided that I will write a trip report for my 2024 trek to the World Series of Poker. Not exactly “Stop the Presses” news, although maybe an old-man poker TR from a former sportswriter turned entrepreneur/investor is somewhat unique.

This trip report proclamation and five nickels will get me a quarter. I get it. Lots of people promise/start trip reports and then never follow through (blasted). You don’t know me, so there is no reason for you to believe I will actually deliver.

So, I will put some skin in the game to show I can be trusted to deliver on my promise. Before I start my 2024 trip report in this thread, I will do a trip report on my first ever 2019 12-day trip to the WSOP (when I was 57 years old and a bit less gray than I am today) based upon old notes I have kept and memories I recall (memory loss is not an issue for me so far, wait, did I already say that?).

I did not write a trip report at the time, so this is new content. Call my 2019 long-after-the-fact walk down memory lane on 2+2 a down payment from me in return for your anticipation of and attention to my 2024 trip report.

2019 World Series of Poker: I have arrived, May 29
Getting the lay of the land; eyeballing Negreanu, Seidel and Lamb; trip down memory lane to Circus Circus; registration line goes further than the eye can see; practicing my poker face.

I’m going through airport security with money split up in an array of different places. A couple grand in my wallet, a stash buried at the bottom of my back pack, some more hidden … none of anyone’s damn business. Good news is, stacks of green paper do not set off alarm bells at the airport security X-ray machine. TSA is my friend. I’m just a harmless looking old guy. Of late, people have started holding doors open for me at restaurants, banks, etc. Young kids who don’t know me have started calling me “Sir.”

As for the cash, I’m not a drug dealer trying to launder bricks of cash. I’m not part of a card counting team bringing in heaps of cash to beat the blackjack tables when the count is juicy. Nor am I a beard acting as a front for a sports betting syndicate with large bundles of cash to get in action at the sports books in town.

I have less than the $10,000 trigger that will get me jammed up by security, but more than I’d normally feel comfortable carrying. I’m a wannabe poker player headed to the World Series of Poker. I’m about to pop my WSOP cherry. Playing it somewhat safe, I’ve got only part of my tourney bankroll on me. The rest is in a big-named bank with branches in both my hometown and Las Vegas. I’ll hit the Vegas branch halfway through my stay. While I’d like to believe I will make a deposit at that time, poker gravity/reality says I will be asking for a withdrawal slip. It’s the direction money flows in Sin City.

Another kid, another dr---, scratch that. I haven’t been a kid for a long time. Another gray-haired guy, another dream. As poker crushers have gotten younger the last couple of decades+, I am swimming against the current. I am 57 years old, although I’d like to believe I am 57 years young. Maybe my mirror is foggy. I guess I’m here to find out. But if you take a look at me, I look more like a guy who will split a pair of 3s at the Blackjack table, and less like someone who will check raise on the river with nothing but a strong sense of imagination underneath his card protector in a poker tournament.

My flight lands in Las Vegas from Chicago. I don’t have a terribly wide-ranging itinerary in mind. I’m here to play poker. Nothing else. After I get my suitcase, I go to pick up my car rental (very inexpensive) and I drive to the Signature where I will be staying. I booked my hotel through Airbnb, which means no resort fee and no parking fees. An early win. Even so, the rates are somewhat more than might be ideal if I were hyper focused on ROI. My approach is this is a poker trip, but I want some niceties. I view this trip as I would if you could buy your way into Wimbledon or The Masters. Here at the WSOP, I will be playing in the same tournament as the best players in the world which I find cool and, surprisingly, not intimidating. Plus, unlike Wimbledon or The Masters I actually have a puncher’s chance if I catch a raging-hot deck. In Wimbledon, I would lose 6-0, 6-0, 6-0 to a qualifier. Every day of the week and twice on Sunday. At the Masters I would finish so many shots behind the last-place finisher that an accounting firm would be needed to tally how many shots back I’d be. But at the WSOP, if I get AA vs KK or if I flop the world in a big-blind special I am going to see a whole bunch of chips come my way against even the best players in the world. Yes, I know those lightning-in-a-bottle hands are not sustainable, but you get the point. Amateurs can go on epic runs in poker on occasion in ways not possible in other professional sports.

I arrive at the Signature. Check in is easy. I get to my room/mini suite and make sure that the promised refrigerator and safe are in fact in place as advertised. They are. The accommodations are very nice. I don’t bother to unpack. I head back downstairs, have my car brought out of (free) parking, I tip the attendant and I head to a nearby grocery store. I load up on basics: bread, peanut butter, jelly, lunch meats, drinks, chips, etc. While I’m not averse to paying extra for a nice room, I see no point in paying the thumb-on-the-scale, absurd prices that I have heard get charged for food at the RIO during the WSOP. Included in my suitcase back at the hotel are a backpack, a thermal bag and ice packs to keep snacks and lunch fresh throughout the poker tourney days and nights. If I make dinner breaks, I am mostly an Earl of Sandwich type of guy.

I drive back to the Signature, unload the groceries, and now it’s time to head over to the Rio. I figure out how to get to the giant (free) parking lot in the back. I head in and feel like an excited tourist (try not to show it, try not to show it) as I see the WSOP branding on the steps and entrance. A few weeks earlier I had made a reservation at an upscale restaurant for tonight figuring I wouldn’t have a chance to do so during the rest of my stay, but a few days ago I had a change of heart and canceled the reservation. I figured my time tonight would be better spent getting the lay of the land at the Rio. Find out where the bathrooms are, get an idea where the different ballrooms are in relation to each other, etc. I wander around a bunch, see where everything is, marvel at the vastness of the ballrooms which for the time being are almost entirely empty. I am pretty content to walk around, look at stuff. Walk around some more, look at more stuff.

At this point, I figure it’s time to get signed up. I ask a WSOP employee where to go and he tells me where to go to sign up for a Caesars Rewards Card, which will let me buy into tournaments, as well as where to go to buy in to the actual tournaments. The line for the Rewards Card is surprisingly short and fast moving. Maybe 15-20 minutes. Then I see a line that goes on and on and on and on to buy in to tomorrow’s initial flight for the Big 50. I know from Two Plus Two that it is more optimal to get in line late at night when there shouldn’t be as many people. I figure I’ll come back later when the line is shorter.

Instead, I find out where the $10,000 Super Turbo Bounty No Limit Hold’em tournament is being played and I head over to gawk. The field seems pretty small and the people watching behind the ropes are not especially numerous. Either people aren’t in town yet, or those that are can all be found in the massive line to buy in to tomorrow’s event. I see Erik Seidel, Daniel Negreanu and Ben Lamb playing in the high roller event, but I’ve never been much of a celebrity gazer. When I was a kid, everyone knew I was a big sports fan, so people were constantly bringing me autographs from famous athletes. I’d politely thank them, but I was thinking, “It’s a piece of paper with a name scribbled on it. And it’s not a check. What the heck am I supposed to do with it?” I remember once, my dad called me. He said he was at his bank and he had someone who wanted to say hi. Next thing I know I hear a man say, “Hi, I’m Ernie Banks, how are you doing today?” The thought going through my mind was, “I’d love to see Ernie Banks perform on the baseball diamond, but what am I supposed to talk to him about?” Later that night at dinner my dad said, “I thought you’d be more excited to talk to Ernie Banks.” Celebrities just aren’t my thing.

I watched Seidel, Negreanu, Lamb and others for about five minutes, but you can’t see the cards from behind the ropes so the novelty wore off fast. Turns out that those five minutes would be relevant eventually in the trip, but more on that later. I decided I would head back to my hotel, dump my rental car, explore the strip and then come back later at night when presumably the lines to buy in to tournaments will hopefully be shorter.

Back at my hotel, I get rid of the car, and I started walking the strip. I take in the overdose of neon lights that are everywhere. With no WSOP tournament to play at the moment, I act like a tourist and search for stuff like the Fountains of Bellagio, the Treasure Island Pirate Show, the Mirage Volcano, etc. OK, good, got that out of my system. Before I head back to my hotel, I decide I need to see one more thing. As a kid I went on a trip to Las Vegas a million years ago. We stayed at Circus Circus. At the time I thought the high-flying circus act above the casino floor and the dazzling array of arcade games on the outer circle around the casino floor were magical. I was so dominant at a game where you used flippers to make a ball go to a points area that made wooden horses move toward the finish line that I eventually won a huge gold horse with a clock in the middle. My first Vegas accolade. For reasons I do not begin to comprehend, Hendon Mob does not acknowledge this initial Vegas score on my part. Back to the present day/night, it was a long walk and the hotels started getting less and less impressive as I made my way toward Circus Circus. I finally arrived, went inside and let’s just say that present day reality did not hold a candle to my fond childhood memories. What a dump it had become. I guess sometimes memories are best left as memories.

Disappointed for the first time on this trip (would it be the last time?), I then made the long walk back to my hotel, had my car brought up and headed back to the Rio to buy in to tomorrow’s Big 50 tournament. As I drove, I patted myself on the back for making the veteran move to come back late in the evening when the lines would be shorter. I went inside the Rio and found the line … which was … longer than it had been earlier in the day. It was massive. So, I got in line and waited. Just like everyone else. Just another schnook in a long line. Sigh. It took two hours to get to the cage. I couldn’t figure out why they wouldn’t have more employees working the cage when there was such a long line. People were there ready to spend their money. When people are begging to hand you their money, TAKE IT! The entrepreneur in me couldn’t understand the lack of planning. Oh well, I thought, it’s just the first night. Surely it will get better.

Yes, I was a rube, a newbie, a country bumpkin who did not know any better. You can stop laughing at me now. OK, fine, you can keep laughing at me. The lines to the cage, of course, did not get any better most of the 12 days I was there. Live and learn. Or should I say wait and learn. Eventually I got to the cage, someone did me the monumental favor of taking my money, and I was one step closer to playing against the big boys.

As I drove back to my hotel, I visualized all of the A-A, straights, flushes and full houses that were surely on the horizon for me. Dare to dream. I’m not going to lie. I was pretty excited. I was going to have to do something about that so my opponents didn’t make me out for the inexperienced rookie that I in fact was. Time to work on my bored, been there done that facial expression. As I took the elevator up to my room, I couldn’t stop grinning. Damn.

Subbed for memories and future TR. What are your dates this year?

May 28-June 8

Well written start, I'm in. GL at the Series.

Surprised you're not going to be around for the Seniors, that's a good event.

Hooked.

I realize that what I'm about to write represents poor game selection, but to get the full WSOP experience I want to go up against the young guns. In addition, the seniors and super seniors events take place too close to my wife's birthday for me to do a trip around those dates.

In for it. Best of luck. I’ll be there for your FT

Fun start, excited to read the rest!

I totally agree with above; even if I eventually get old enough to play a Senior Event, I will never enter one. They are probably softer, but it just sounds like much less fun. At least in my book.

Sent from my SM-N970U using Tapatalk

Whale, depends on how you define fun. My experience has been that it's much more of a collegial, fun atmosphere. I've only seen a few players with the sunglasses/hoodie/etc setup. People playing seriously (to the extent of their ability), but not treating the tournament as if it's life-changing.

Mostly, it's a bunch of old folks sitting around, playing cards, getting to know each other a little bit, having a good time. It is true that it's pretty soft (even an idiot such as myself can make day 2).

Anyway, end that derail, let's get back to rp's stories.

Oh great, I never even got close. I did cash in one of those Daily seniors that replace the deepstack, but that's about it. I never really played against old guys, so when I raised with AQ, another guy called, and the button raised, I nearly jammed, figuring the button was stealing. After a lot of thought I folded. The guy that called my raise snap folded, showing AQ. Wat? Oh, he knew the button had AK, which he showed.

Holy crap the Big Fitty was 5 years ago?!?! That was my best bracelet finish, made it to day 3, where I lost concentration and played bad.

OP, when someone says you have to reg late at night to find a short line, they mean 2 or 3 am.

"OP, when someone says you have to reg late at night to find a short line, they mean 2 or 3 am."

You've got that right. My definition of "late" changed that night.

Enjoying this so far.

I've been to the WSOP five times now and the first trip was by far the most magical. It's a very unique spectacle if you've never been before. Although I have no major complaints about the new setup at the ParisShoe, I still think the Rio had a unique charm. In summer time it would become a little poker island in the middle of the desert. And while it may have been a dump, it was our dump. It felt special to be playing in those same historic rooms where so many notable hands happened in the past. It was really the poker center of the universe every year during the WSOP.

I miss the Guy Fieri highway, the bad restaurants, The Gold Coast, and playing poker in the bowling alley.

Glad I got a chance to play the venue a few times and make some memories before the WSOP moved on.

First off, nice bread crumb. I'm curious to see how those five minutes pay off later in the story.

Secondly, I'm with you on sweating live poker. Even as a fan of the game, I have a low tolerance for sweating the rail. Maybe 5-10 minutes before I lose interest. Unless you're watching a very lively table where the crowd is engaged in the spectacle, it's just too dull without knowing the action.

Poker doesn't work well as a spectator sport.

In for the excellent writing. I’m digging the James Joyce-esque, present tense, stream of consciousness. Really makes the reader feel immersed in the story.

I’ve never written professionally, but I appreciate those who have, and can do it well.

IN!

…for the past, present, and future!!!

I´m in. Very nice recap. I love thr analogy masters/wimbledon. But thats the magic.
People here in germany asked me alot, why I´m heading to vegas for an 11 hours flight just to play poker tournaments.
Played a couple of WSOP events, this year my first ME. Damn, july is only two months away :-)

Who is rppoker?

I guess some background information is in order before I jump into the WSOP poker. You deserve to know my life and poker résumé if you are going to invest your time into my words.

First my career. For a big chunk of my working days, I was a sportswriter. The most noteworthy portion of my time as a journalist saw me covering the NFL. Among other things, I covered nine Super Bowls. I won a lot of writing awards, so I should be able to deliver when it comes to the writing in this TR. The poker? We’ll just have to wait and see. I thoroughly enjoyed what I did as a sportswriter, but I reached a point in life where I was married with two young kids. My oldest was just reaching the point where her activities were taking place on weekends. I wanted to be able to coach my kids’ teams. Plus, my dad, who was getting up in years, had a successful real estate business (strip center/shopping center and office building ownership both local and throughout the country) with no line of succession. So, I made the decision to change careers 22 years ago and work in, and eventually take over the running of, the family real estate business.

As for poker, my résumé is admittedly razor thin compared to most/all of you on 2+2. Until the year 2000, the number of lifetime hands of poker I had played was less than 2+2. As in, 0+0. At that time, a bunch of guys I knew wanted to start a low-stakes, friendly poker home game. They invited me to play, but I said I had never played poker before. They assured me that it was incredibly low stakes in which it was a rotating dealer’s choice. That wasn’t helpful, as now I was being told that I would be playing a wide variety of poker games, none of which I knew the rules to. I grudgingly accepted, feeling like a lamb being invited into the lion’s den. As it turned out, the stakes were incredibly low, exactly as promised. Most of the games were relatively simple to follow once someone would explain them to me. I wasn’t especially intrigued by all of the games, many of which struck me as kind of goofy, but I saw this as more of a social event once a month than a card game. There was one thing that intrigued me, however. At the end of the night everyone would kick in $20, and we’d play a Texas Hold’em tournament. This I found fascinating. Not to mention, I seemed pretty good at it. I quickly started reading books on the subject. Initially, the Harrington books, then Doyle’s Super System, and then anything else I could get my hands on.

Soon thereafter, I was on a family vacation in Arizona and my dad asked me if I would go to a nearby casino with him. I said sure I would keep him company. I looked into the casino and learned that it had scheduled a No Limit Hold’em tourney the night we were talking about going. When we got to the casino, my dad was about to head off to play blackjack when we had the following conversation:

My dad: “How long will your tournament last?”

Me: “I don’t know. I could get knocked out on the first hand. I could last hours.”

My dad: “OK. I’ll be at the blackjack tables when you get knocked out.”

A total of two hours later, my dad had played all the blackjack he cared to play. Three hours after that I made the final table of a tourney that had started with maybe 200+ players. At the beginning of the tournament, I was pretty card dead and mostly treaded water. Then I got moved to a table where there was what I would now call a very LAG player who was running everyone over and had the largest stack. He was playing a ton of hands. I decided to target him and any time I had a premium hand I would try to play for as big a pot as possible. I got K-K and he doubled me up. I got A-K suited, connected on the flop and won a ton of chips from him. I got J-J and won a bunch of chips from him. Basically, he was stealing from everyone else, and then sending those chips my way. He was my Robin Hood, stealing from the rich and giving to me. I felt like I should send him a thank you note. Finally, at the final table I knocked him out when I was dealt A-A. At this point, the only hands I had displayed at showdown were big hands, so my image was that of the tightest player at the table.

Now that the LAG guy was out, there was way less aggression at the final table. At this point I loosened way up. I wasn’t a maniac, but I was stealing a bunch of pots, none of which went to showdown, so no one seemed the wiser that I had changed gears. They just figured I was catching premium hands. After a while, however, the blinds were getting crazy high and I was starting to get a bit short. A middle position player raised preflop, the button called and I looked down at J-10 suited and went all in. A squeeze play was my thinking. I was hoping both opponents would fold to my aggression, and I’d get some brief breathing room from the blinds. As far as anyone at the table had seen, anytime I bet it I had it. The initial raiser was beside himself. “I have a big hand,” he whined, “But this guy is the tightest guy at the table.” He tanked and he tanked and, exasperated, he folded. The button called with 8-8. When I turned over J-10 suited, Whiny Guy Folder almost had a heart attack. Someone call 9-1-1. He never said what he folded, but I’m pretty sure I would not have enjoyed a call from him. While he pouted, the dealer turned over the cards and there was a jack on the flop, which held up for me.

When we got down to five-handed, no one had a clear-cut big stack. Meanwhile, the blinds were threatening everyone. In the big blind I looked down at 8c-8s. The action folded to the small blind, who raised for a big chunk of my chips. I went all-in and the small blind said, “You caught me, but I’m pot committed. I call.” He turned over Jh-7d. The flop was Kh-6c-2s. I was looking good. If my hand held up, I was going to be the chip leader. The turn was the Js which caused my shoulders to slump and took my breath away. I did not improve on the river and I was out after almost seven hours of play. I shook the hand of the guy who knocked me out, and I noticed for the first time that maybe 20-30 people were surrounding the table and watching. Someone from the casino walked me over to the payout area where I found out I had won $1,800.

After collecting my money, a player who got knocked out at the final table a bit before me (not the LAG player) came up to me and said, “You played well. I haven’t seen you here before. Is this your first time playing here?”

I responded, “It’s my first time playing anywhere.”

The look on his face can only be described as stunned disbelief, and, shaking his head, he smiled and said, “Well good for you.”

After that I walked over to my dad and said, “Sorry I made you sit around and wait so long.”

To this my dad replied, “Are you kidding? That was the greatest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Who is rppoker, part 2
I may be the guy that has almost killed off poker (am I a jinx?); Tom Brady is why I can afford to play in the WSOP (am I lucky?)

After the $1,800 cash, I was really bit by poker fever. I was now devouring poker strategy books, and I loaded some money into a couple of poker sites to play online for the first time (I wasn’t using rppoker as my online poker moniker back then). I was an immediate winner. I was playing nine-handed sit-n-gos as well as some tournaments, albeit at low stakes. I was cashing at what I thought were very high percentages, so I went up in stakes. Even at the higher stakes (though still on the small to medium spectrum) I was cashing an absurdly high percentage of the time, and when I would lose it was often due to a pretty bad beat. And no, I was not folding my way to third place in the sit-n-gos. I was finishing in first place quite often. I have no idea if I was playing exceptionally well (hard to tell given the small sample size), if I was simply beating low level competition (likely) or if I was enjoying the positive end of variance (possibly true), but my success rate seemed through the roof. My high win rate continued for a good six months. It was at this point that I nervously (and possibly foolishly) decided I would start playing in a few Sunday Million online tournaments just to see what might happen. That decision was made on a Tuesday. Three days later, Black Friday shut down the online poker world. Damn. With the online world closed off to me, I stopped playing poker.

We fast forward many years later. In 2018 I somehow stumbled on to the fact that a bunch of WSOP Final Tables were being streamed. I started watching these streams and I loved what I was seeing. Poker Fever returned. When the 2018 WSOP ended I decided that I was going to play in the 2019 WSOP. I knew that my poker skills had atrophied, but I decided that I wanted to play in the WSOP, which would be made easy by a big, non-poker score I had previously experienced.

During my time in the family real estate business, we had a new tenant in one of our office buildings. They were four guys that were renting 800 square feet of space. I was fascinated by their potentially disruptive business concept. I was telling everyone I knew that these guys were going to be a publicly traded company someday. Everyone said I was nuts, that no company goes from four guys to publicly traded. I disagreed, and I invested in them when they went out for their first round of fund raising.

I did so partially because of something that happened during my sports writing days. When Tom Brady was drafted in the sixth round by the Patriots, I wrote a column just after the draft saying that I believed Brady was going to become a quality starter in the league. As a Michigan grad, I had seen him play a lot. This column was for a national audience. But then, before it could be printed, I thought to myself, “No one cares about a sixth-round draft pick. I can’t run this column.” So, I tore it up and wrote something else. I absolutely believed that Brady would become a starting caliber quarterback in the NFL. It would have been the greatest call of all time. But I didn’t run it for reasons that had nothing to do with my conviction that Brady would become a solid starter. I don’t have many regrets in life, but tearing up that column is one of them.

So, when everyone told me I was nuts to invest in the start-up company that was my tenant, I vowed that I was not going to make the Tom Brady mistake a second time. I believed in something others didn’t, and this time I was going to act on my conviction. What other people thought be damned. I ended up investing in the first six rounds of fund raising that the company went out for. After about eight years in business, the company went public. Tom Brady was the reason that I made an enormous profit. After the six-month post-IPO lock-up period ended, I sold my stock for close to what would be the company’s all-time high per share. I paid the taxes, paid off my mortgage and invested everything else in long-term municipal bonds that were at a not-seen-in-forever rate of 5% (tax free federally). My timing was incredibly lucky. I decided that a portion of the interest I would earn from the munis was to be spent on fun stuff I otherwise wouldn’t do.

For example, in 2017 I took my dad to the Super Bowl. It was the Patriots-Falcons Super Bowl. We were rooting for Brady and the Patriots for obvious and not-so-obvious reasons (see previous paragraph Brady story for the obvious, plus a couple of friends of mine were tight with Bill Belichick for the not-so-obvious). In the third quarter the score was Falcons 28, Patriots 3, and I was thinking, “Oh My God, I have taken my dad to the worst Super Bowl ever.” Then Brady & Company went crazy, they tied it at the end of regulation and won it in overtime for the greatest Super Bowl comeback ever. Oh My God, I took my dad to the greatest Super Bowl ever.

In 2018, I decided I was going to use some of the annual municipal bond interest to play in the next WSOP. I figured I was free rolling since the money was only coming from some of the annual muni interest and none of the principal. For a year I studied on a poker training site. I then played in the 2019 WSOP (trip report soon to follow). I loved every minute of it and decided I would play in the 2020 WSOP and every year after that.

Then in 2020 COVID-19 struck and my WSOP poker playing plans were dashed yet again.

To recap: I decided to go up in stakes and start playing in the Sunday Million, and a few days later Black Friday struck. Then, years later, I decide I am going to play in the WSOP every year, a global pandemic strikes, and the WSOP is not a thing for me for a few years.

Am I the guy who kills poker?

It is now the year 2024 and I am ready to return to the WSOP. Can poker survive my presence? I have been studying on a different poker training site to prepare, but I figure the poker world is one calamity away from declaring me persona non grata forever more. Has Las Vegas or the WSOP ever 86ed a person for being a jinx?

So, before moving forward to my 2024 WSOP trip report, it’s back to my 2019 WSOP for a long after-the-fact trip report as promised.

AARP is the devil... just stop

Enjoying this tremendously - I mostly lurk the forum, but feel compelled to comment on this solid work. I’ll also be at 2024 WSOP this June, mostly in the cash game arena. Good luck!

this guy knows how to finish a story

Fellow sports writer here (without the awards).

Enjoying this very much and looking forward to the rest....

I just want to say thank you to everyone who has responded with positive comments. It is greatly appreciated and highly motivating.

The quality is so high, there’s no way I’m going to embarrass myself with my own TR in June. Thank you for that, sincerely

That's stinkin' thinkin' right thare, bucko.

It's not a competition. As the author of a number of TRs of questionable quality, while I might compare my work to others, I have never rated, ranked or compared other OPs work against each other. I'm grateful that so many folk from various backgrounds take the time to document their experiences for us to enjoy.

Though this is one of the better ones, so far