Yes 3 day ones and top 25 moved on each day to day 2 which means you were in the money for $200 min. They had 45 minute levels on day 2 which was great for a freeroll.

Anyone here play the Harrah's wsop freeroll today? I'm curious how many entrants that got if anyone knows.

Don't know but the room was packed when I walked by around 11am.

59. I know quite a few people have said they won't be doing it again. That was a miserable two weeks.

Yea 50 hrs is quite a lot for 2 weeks especially at Harrah's where game selection can be limited and the day games are usually awful in my experience.

$16.64/hr promo EV based on 59 entrants in a 50k tourney. Not bad but also not that much better than the usual rate for the freeroll grinds that paid out cash.

I would say usual was about $10 an hour

Anybody knows how many entrants the last bally's bi-weekly promo tourny had?

90. With 80 paid.

I can’t do the South Point freeroll this time. I’ve played two sessions so far and both games were so bad. I left tonight and went to play 1/3 Aria. The game was so much better.

Yea not sure what to do with myself since I haven't committed to a freeroll grind lately. Walked into green valley to check out the 1/3 and 1/2 games there and wound up in what I thought was 5/5nl that ended up being 5/5 mandatory 10 utg, and frequently double straddled to 20. I ran hot though,

Went to Bellagio but only ended up playing 20/40 lhe instead of 2/5. The limit game wasn't that great, but grindable perhaps. $6/half time and no JP drop felt amazing.

Next day played some Venetian 2/5, 5 tables to choose from was nice, managed to get into an ok game.

Then I went to Wynn today to check out some 1/3 or 2/5 and wound up playing 9/18 mix cause they needed some help getting the game started.

I'm on a mission to get familiar with all the 2/5 games in town to see if there is one that suits me. Maybe I'll settle for a deep 1/3 game if I can't find consistently good 2/5.

I'm still gonna get in my 12-15 hrs at Bally's every other week though.

Thinking about hitting up the 1/3 at Orleans since their BBJ is over 100k now but knowing me I'll definitely end up playing lo8 instead.

Nothing wrong with the lo8 from what I've heard.

I'm back grinding cash both live and online for the first time in 3 months. Trying to get WSOP credits any way possible, whether online or live, free rolls or small entry fees, so as to have as small of outlay of my own funds as possible for the WSOP.

In my 2nd attempt to get a Big50 seat online, I finished 2nd but that still paid out $300 so I got about 60% of a seat there (total outlay was $30). Last year I did not take advantage of any of these opportunities, but this year trying to take advantage of everything that is available.

Now I'm grinding cash for Harrah's WSOP free roll. Hoping to get a nice score in the free roll because I dont want to be forced to do it all over again the following two weeks.

If you are good enough to beat 1-2 and you are trying to make money, why would you play in arguably the worst games possible? Imo these freerolls are for people that can’t beat the game for a significant hourly.

There was a whale recently that lost about $15,000 at 1-2. Of course, that’s an outlier but there are great games outside of Flamingo, Harrahs and Bally’s.

Cashing in the freerolls doesn’t even make up for the lost value in game quality.

I agree. Generally speaking, these games are horrible. However, each of these free rolls is awarding $50k in WSOP credits. There are roughly 55-60 people that qualify for the free roll. Top 50 pay (minimum payout is $100). Top 10 get at least $1200. Top 2 get $10k. Probably going to get chopped at the final table. I know what I need to cover my 2019 WSOP budget, and it isn't nearly 10k. So if I can get to the final table and there is a chop, in all likelihood I'll have my entire WSOP budget covered. So I've got slightly less than a 20% chance of that happening. I can afford to waste 60 hours to see if I can make that happen as of right now, as I explained in my previous post, I'm expending all my poker time to play in the WSOP this summer as cheaply as possible.

People don't realize the impact the quality of the game makes on their win rate.

A simple way to illustrate it is to assign everyone at the table's approximate win/loss rate. So your crusher's will average about $25/hr. Above average player's about $15/hr. Average player about $5/hr. Rec players lose at $20/hr. Fish lose at $50/hr. Whales lose at over $100/hr.

Then it's just simple math to calculate the game quality. Sure this isn't exact science but it should help show how game quality will affect win rates for a good/great player and why Flamingo/Harrahs aren't profitable places to grind.

Interesting way to think about it. So lets say not including yourself in a 1/2nl game, you estimate:

2 above average players $15x2= -$30/hr
3 average players $5x3= -$15/hr
2 rec players $20x2= +$40/hr
1 fish $50x1= +$50/hr

So here you have players winning $45/hr and other losing $90/hr for +$45/hr value at the table.

How can you further break that down to what it means to your estimated win rate?

Just subtract your estimated win rate and if its still a positive number then its a good game?

I think you could do something like that but expand it to something like this. Subtract your win rate then divide by 9, the number of players. So if a game is +$90/hr, everyone gets +$10/hr added to their win/loss rate. Makes sense in that even whales benefit from the action they create and will win hands in inflated pots.

Obviously there are tons of variables involved that will skew the numbers up or down but I think this is actually a good way to look at how game quality affects everyone numerically.

People focus so much on win rates, theirs or their opponents. What they rarely look at is the loss rates of fish and whales and that's mainly because it's hard to quantify. Great 1-2 players will max out around $40/hr and it's fairly easy to judge a winning player's hourly by their skill level. A whale could max out at something crazy like losing $9000/hr by buying for $300 max, raising to $299 and then folding to a shove every hand. No one will ever win $9000/hr at 1-2 $300 max. Granted that's the highest end possible but it is possible on the losing end. So you are looking at a loss rate being between one cent an hour to $9000/hr.

But you need to factor in the $125-$150 per hour coming off the table in rake, dealer tips and cocktail waitress tips.

Edit: I guess that is already factored into the win rates.

I only made it 30 hours into the freeroll. If I would have played Saturday, I probably would have given it a shot to complete the 60 hours by this Thursday morning. However, Saturday I failed to get into the top 50 on the wsop.com big50 freeroll (finished 63rd) to get a big50 seat so I was completely bummed about that and no mood to play more poker.

I actually had a good hourly ($19.95) over that time period I played at Harrash's thanks to one really good session. I layed out a schedule to get me to the 60 hours, I just have a really difficult time maintaining. Two losing sessions in a row and I lost all will to continue as I feel I should never walk out of there losing money under any circumstances. I think I screwed myself to begin with when I set a goal of having all my sessions being winning sessions.

Debating whether to give it another try, the last 2 weeks this free roll is being offered starting next Thursday. On the one hand it is nice to think I'd make it to the final table and have my WSOP entirely paid for. On the other hand, it would be so tilting to walk away with $100 from the free roll (or worse not even cash) and/or having a negative hourly over the two week time period. So I could be setting myself up to be on full tilt mode entering the WSOP with little or no will to play poker at all.

We all allow emotion to creep into our performance sometimes (we're not robots), but what you're describing sounds like a huge leak, unless you're being overly dramatic with phrases like "lost all will to continue" and "setting myself up to be on full tilt mode entering the WSOP." Losses are a big part of the game. I'm reluctant to state the obvious but it is just a game, and we play it for money. If you're this emotional about cash game sessions, how in the world do you ever manage to play tournaments??? I've currently gone 28 consecutive tournaments without a cash, and I'm a little discouraged about that, but how would you handle these downswings, which are typical?

Some days do not go well, but you can't let it affect your mood to such a large extent. And it's also affecting your work (if this is your work). To complete 60% of a freeroll opportunity and then not finish it off because you're not in the proper mental state is a big problem.

It's great that you've identified when you're not fit to play, but perhaps freeroll promotions aren't for you if you're not going to complete the hours. The benefits are juicy, but you MUST do the hours. To partially complete them is to give up too much opportunity when you could be in great cash games with lower rake elsewhere.

Might I suggest reframing your goals? Instead of never having a losing session (which is impossible), focus on making good decisions as often as possible, and keeping a calm emotional state. We all need a little perspective sometimes. When the fish gets there on the river against you for the fourth time that hour, it's all going to be fine. You still have your health (presumably), and you still have some cash in your wallet to reload.

It's great to be competitive and it's great to desire success, but none of us control the outcome. We're not driving the bus. People seem to think they have more control over their lives than they really do, and an extreme version of this sentiment often plays out at the poker tables. We worked hard, we've studied the game, and so we're entitled to "fair results." It doesn't work that way. Sometimes really good things happen and sometimes really bad things happen, just like in life. We can take lower variance lines, but that's usually just another leak (albeit a smaller one). Embrace the roller coaster. Or consider playing less poker, if that's an option for you. Your long-term happiness is much more valuable than your $19.95 hourly in the Harrah's 1/2 game!

I guess me typing all that out helped with my attitude because I continued on with the free roll after thinking about it for about an hour after I typed all that out. In addition, I sat for I believe my second longest session ever, 11 hours, and left with a profit, albeit a small one. I dont like to play super long sessions like that, but I wanted to get a bulk of my remaining hours out of the way to make the remaining 3 days more manageable.

You are right, that would have been absolutely stupid to go halfway through the hours and not complete it.

Overall, you gave really good advice. And you are right in both the sense that I can be over-dramatic in some cases ie my losing the will to play comment and that I shouldnt let the losses affect me as much as they do. I just think I let the negatives affect me for longer periods than most normal people. Something I really need to work on more.

Good luck in the freeroll! I'm glad you continued with your hours. That was the right decision. We all have things we need to work on. It sounds like you have enough self-awareness to know the specific areas where you struggle. Many of us let negative sessions affect us more than they should. If you can improve in this area, it will be an additional edge you have over your fellow players.

Is there an easy way of finding out all the card room promotions during WSOP? Or does anyone have any experience of what they are like? Looking for a way to narrow down a few casinos to play certain hours each week/month during wsop to maximise the rakeback

https://www.pokeratlas.com/poker-rooms/las-vegas-nevada

https://www.bravopokerlive.com/venues/

I ended up cashing for $750 ($500 in WSOP credit + $250 cash 11th-20th place). It had been a while since I had played in the free roll, but it sure did feel like they left out a few levels, or at the very least it was the same structure as the regular free roll (the final table I think was going to 30 minute levels instead of 20). One would think since you are playing for $10k for 1st and 2nd, they could have had a better structure.

In any case, I have to look at this positively in the fact I now have my Big50 entry fully paid and the two weeks I played cash came out with a profit, although my hourly ended up being pretty bad. So it could have been worse.

Now I have to decide by Saturday if I'm going to start in on another 60 hours for the final WSOP free roll. Ideally, I'd like to spend my 2 weeks prior to the Series starting actually playing tournaments instead of grinding cash 6 hours a day. I guess all that will dependent if I final table the Orleans tournament tonight. Have a pretty good track record there with a few final table chops, so it is not out of the realm of possibilities. Otherwise, I'm back to grinding cash for the next two weeks.