The WSOP had a "steps"-like satellite setup this year that I haven't seen before. It was something like $280 for a satty, winners get tickets into an $1100 mega for Main Event seats. The Main should be softer than ever. I thought about entering but I know I could never use the 10k for the event. If they gave us lammers I'd sell them. If they made me play, I'd try to sell action, even with a negative markup if I had to.

It's easier now than ever for young (aka lower income) people to play bracelet events. There were several $400-$600 events. I remember the hubbub when they first had a $1k event. The old-timers poo-pooed it. Only specialty events were under $1500 back then.

I might try a couple option schemes for next year, if they pay off I might try the Main. It's just such a throw-away of ten grand, I can't imagine doing it. Maybe I'll just enter a few megas.

There are certain players who are simply never going to 3 or 4 bet light. With enough hours at the table, you start to get a sense of how your opponents play. 4-betting or 5-betting a hand like 88 or AJ against an AK+/JJ+ range is just lighting chips on fire. So yes, there are spots where people are never, ever light. Part of thriving in MTTs is recognizing those spots and folding accordingly.

That doesn't mean nobody will ever be light. It's player-specific.

In general, a common error I see is people spazzing with something like AT against an obviously monster range. It's easy to write that off as "luck" or a "cooler", but often times the hands are pretty face up if you take time to think about what the other person could really have based on action/history.

Thanks. It was something I'd been wanting to do for a couple years, so I'm glad to have hit the milestone. Looking ahead, I'm realizing that "cashing" is a secondary consideration to accumulating chips and really giving yourself a chance for that deep run. It feels psychologically significant to last beyond the bubble, but that's where the real intrigue begins.

Unexpected Postscript



I have a week off work and rooms on the strip are $8 per night before resort fees, so I decided to spend a couple extra nights in Vegas to get some more practice on the felt and catch the final fumes of the WSOP. I arrived too late to play any of the last gasp events, but was present for the final final tables in Rio WSOP history. Spent about 30 minutes watching the $100k FT tonight while the $5k was playing down behind them.

My phone provider just shipped me a new phone for free because they're upgrading their network. This thing is the absolute nut low camera quality. I can't believe how awful it is for taking pics. I'm going to replace it once I get home with a properly decent Samsung, but for now...we say a final goodbye to the Rio in glorious 8-bit.

The gift shop is gonzo.



The main Brasilia/Pavilion hallway...once home to bustling foot traffic and second-rate vendors...now eerily empty.



There were no signs of life anywhere except the nether regions of the Amazon. Brasilia was broken down and all the tables/lights removed. Pavilion is empty.

The final voyage of the mother ship:



I was on the strip a bit later and spent a few minutes cruising through the future home of the WSOP, Bally's/Paris.

Bally's has a number of small convention rooms in this hallway, which terminates in a massive event center space that's probably bigger than the pavilion room.



You can't tell from the **** quality of my camera, but the Paris convention center is quite nice and will have a prestigious atmosphere.



One thing I'll add is that even though they're in separate casinos, the Paris and Bally's event spaces are extremely close to each other. It won't take very long at all to pop over from one to the other. No more than a few minutes. The distance may be shorter than the distance from the Rio front entrance to the Rio convention center.

It's going to be interesting to see how the Caesars folks divvy up the space, because they're going to have a massive amount of square footage to work with. Will they stick the premium events in Paris and make the plebs (daily deepstacks?) play in Bally's? We'll have to wait and see, but I'm excited for something new.

I'm dinking around in a few small tournaments this week, but it's nothing worth talking about.

See you in June.

They aren't all that close, especially when the halls are packed.

Substantially shorter.

A lot of those smaller rooms have movable walls, so there may be more open space than you think.

Assuming that Bally's re-opens their food places, there will be orders of magnitude better food choices than at the Rio. Not just Bally/Paris, but PHo and Miracle Mile aren't that far away, nor is the Linq promenade. A few random spots in the cheezy bazaar too.

BINK

The other three people who posted in this thread may be delighted to learn that Nitty By Nature 4 is coming to a forum near you, 6/6-6/13.

Gonna play the Monster Stack and some other small stuff. Hyped.

Mark your calendar if you enjoy overly-wordy introspection, nitty folds, and min cashes.