Vegas June 2017 (WSOP)

The new plan

Last Updated: 2017-06-13 12:37:53

Bottom line: This is going to be a big WSOP year for me. I'm playing in 4-5 WSOP tournaments this summer. I am not playing in the tag team event because all the guys I would have formed a team with are not going to be able to this year, and as I said in the original planning post it wasn't great timing for me either.

Since I'm not playing in the tag team, we added a day up front so I can play in something on what was our arrival day. Still staying at Aria, trip is now 15 days including travel days (June 14-28) and if I were to final table in the Monster Stack the trip would grow more because we would likely stay into the following weekend. And I'd be going back in July but that's another story...

UPDATE: Aria released their 2017 Aria Poker Classic schedule and it seems less varied this year. $400 NLH at 11am and $240 NLH at 7PM most days. Only 2 non-hold'em days during our trip and both of them conflict with my WSOP plans...WSOP Deepstack is the $235 buyin 2pm tournament that has attracted up to 2000 players in the past...

UPDATE 2: Patrick will be out there for our second weekend to play in the Monster Stack with me

UPDATE 3: Joann and I don't generally go for expensive dinners out, so every year we splurge at Smith and Wollensky on the strip as sort of a celebration of the year (we usually toast all the things we didn't celebrate already...one at a time... :-) ). Unfortunately they are shutting down the restaurant for 6 months to a year effective 5/31 because they are moving to an unspecified casino! So we had to pick somewhere else...

UPDATE 4: Three weeks before departure I told Joann I could flex my schedule to work half a day Wednesday the day before we leave...Joann asked what we would do Thursday if we woke up there instead of driving that day...and now it's 14 nights...

Here's the full itinerary:

6/14		Travel day!!! I work 'til lunch, lunch with the family, late dinner at In-n-Out in Utah, Vegas around midnight
6/15		A day to hang out, date night at Gallaghers!
6/16	3:00PM	WSOP Event #32	Omaha 8/b Mix (Pot limit, Limit, "Big O")
6/17	11:00AM	Aria Classic	(if no day 2 from 8/b Mix)
6/18	11:00AM	Aria Classic	(if no day 3 from 8/b Mix or early day off?)
6/19	11:00AM	Aria Classic	Seniors event (since I can...)
6/20	3:00PM	WSOP Event #40	Stud 8b
6/21	11:00AM	Day off	(if no Stud 8/b day 2, tho Aria Classic isn't out of the question)
6/22	3:00PM	WSOP Event #44	H.O.R.S.E
6/23	3:00PM	WSOP Event #46	Pot Limit Omaha 8b (if no HORSE day 2)
6/24	11:00AM	Aria Classic	Double-Stack Turbo (or day off/HORSE day 3/PLO day 2)
6/25	10:00AM	WSOP Event #47	Monster Stack Day 1B
6/26	2:00PM	WSOP Deepstack	if no day 2 from Monster Stack
6/27	2:00PM	WSOP Deepstack	if no day 3 from Monster Stack
6/28	Return home if no final table from Monster Stack...or book another night if Im still alive!

Drop me a line if you want a piece of my action in any of the above :-)

And in case you are wondering...yes there are contingency plans if I have some crazy success. If I were to make a 5-digit profit I will be returning to either satellite or outright buy in to the Main Event in July. Which route depends on how big the first of those five digits are. And Peter doesn't know it yet but if I were to final table in Monster Stack he's probably flying to Vegas for his 18th birthday and we will be there through the weekend...

Backstory:

In the summer of 2014 Joann was nudging me to play in the Main Event as a 50th Birthday present to myself. As you can imagine that was incredibly tempting. There were two reasons I decided against it...

The first was our situation at the time. I had been given a layoff notice from Boeing, but I had a new job coming with no interruption and I had a nice going-away present coming from Boeing (rolled up vacation time, severance) so cash wasn't an issue per se.

That said, we were going to be moving back to Colorado and buying a new house. We were going to have to make a downpayment, possibly before selling the AZ house, and we really didn't know what we were going to get out of the AZ house. So even tho I could have swung it at the time, it wasn't a good idea. And it was a good decision because as it turned out the AZ house sale was, well, painful.

The second reason was the "poker bankroll" manager in me came out. I told Joann that even if I was going to drop that kind of cash playing in the WSOP, I'd rather take the money and play in a bunch of lower buyin tournaments instead of putting all my eggs in one basket to give myself more opportunities to get into the money. If I had a final table type cash in a tournament like that, then I would probably play in the Main Event with some of that money.

So instead I decided to just try and satellite in instead for a much lower buyin that particular July.

In the second half of 2016 we sold 2 of our 3 rental properties and were waiting to sell the 3rd house until their lease ran out in February. Around Christmas we made a big purchase of something Joann wanted. Joann was actually reluctant to make the purchase, but at the time I said to her that once I re-invested the money from the houses in something else I wouldn't want to touch it...so if there was a good time to make that purchase, that was the time to make it. So we did.

That takes me to today. The 3rd rental property is under contract (had 3 offers within 30 hours of it going up) and should be sold late March/early April. UPDATE: Closed on 3/31, we only own one house for the first time in a very long time...

Joann reminded me of the conversation about playing in the Main Event when I turned 50 and why I didn't. And she reminded me about the conversation about "if there was going to be a good time, now is the time..."

So...here we go!

I'm playing in at least 4 of the 5 events at the top of this post. I could, but likely will not, play in Event #33 No Limit Hold'Em on our first Saturday or Event #41 Pot Limit Omaha on Wednesday.

I love playing PLO, and my only WSOP cash to this point was the PLO/PLH mix tournament. But in general PLO tournaments have not gone well for me so I will likely skip that one. And the field for NLH that first Saturday will likely be enormous, would rather play a smaller field Omaha 8/b instead.