Quote:
Originally Posted by Jkpoker10
May pass on most wsop as I like Venetian and Wynn more honestly.
With you on that. My first few years playing summer poker in Vegas, I really bought into the WSOP branding and wanted to cash something at the Series. I'm over that now. They offer a lot of great events, but also many that aren't special enough to justify fighting the crowds. I intend to skip any bracelet events with 30 minute levels and anything that figures to play 10-handed. No more Colossus or goofy $500 freezouts for me.
My time frame for WSOP this year is 6/16-6/24 (and possibly a July trip for the Main), which means I'm probably going to miss the Monster Stack. Milly Maker could land on the weekend of 6/22 and figures to be the most logical premium event for me, albeit in violation of my "no 10-handed poker" rule (I think they played 10-handed on day 1 last year). I may not play any other bracelet events unless I can satellite into something big.
Mostly I'll be eyeballing those Wynn and Venetian multi-days with 40 minute levels. Slightly less insane field sizes than the WSOP, but still a good opportunity to play a quality structure for massive prizes. To your point about price, we talked about this last year and it seems to be a matter of capacity. There are more poker players in town during the summer and the same amount of floor space, so the solution for venues is to crank up the prices. Wynn typically has multi-day events in the $400-600 range during their Signature Series throughout the year, but in summer it's rare to see them offer anything below $1k. The same type of event would instead be $1100 or $1600. You just have to go into summer knowing that the stakes of poker are going to be higher for an equivalent experience.
As for Aria, I've fired a few of their one days in recent years when I've had empty spots on my schedule. They're fine, but nothing great. I can't help but feel that MGM's approach to tournament poker is scattershot and lazy in general. Aria's schedule has been very vanilla the last few summers. MGM Grand is a bit of an enigma in the market. They ran a winter series alongside the Wynn stuff this year, yet they still haven't posted any results on Hendon and they have no social media presence that I'm aware of. It all feels very cobbled together, which is a shame because MGM is the premium hotel operator in town. They haven't applied their same standards of excellence to running great poker events, although the betMGM Championship from the last two years is at least a start.
Maybe someone will step up this year. Maybe Wynn will launch a shot across the bow and open up their convention space for summer poker. That would be taking the fight to WSOP.