{"id":4164,"date":"2021-10-13T00:48:57","date_gmt":"2021-10-13T07:48:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mutantpoker.com\/?p=4164"},"modified":"2021-10-13T00:52:45","modified_gmt":"2021-10-13T07:52:45","slug":"wsop-2021-back-to-the-rio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mutantpoker.com\/?p=4164","title":{"rendered":"WSOP 2021: Back to the Rio"},"content":{"rendered":"

As anyone who reads this blog knows, I am not a professional poker player. The last bracelet event I played at the\u00a0World Series of Poker<\/strong> was in 2013. I\u2019ve only\u00a0ever<\/em> played two (well, now\u00a0three<\/em>) bracelet events, and they were back when the WSOP first introduced $1,000 events. This year, I sunk even lower and entered a $600 bracelet event.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a long haul, folks, Years ago, I\u2019d heard about folks grinding satellites, and even though I felt I was decent at playing them, I\u2019d never had the discipline to sit down and just do it. So many tournaments in the summer (or anytime I was likely to be going to Vegas), so many variations. Never mind that I\u2019d done reasonably well in the\u00a0Ignition Casino Thousandaire Makers<\/strong> (only to blow the money I made on MTTs). Never mind that I had\u00a0Dara O\u2019Kearney\u2019s\u00a0Poker Satellite Strategy<\/em><\/strong> on my Kindle mostly unread.<\/p>\n

I\u00a0did<\/em> put my plan into action when I came down in 2018, but bricked out. In 2019, when I \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcretired\u2019 from poker, I had to cancel the trip at the last minute because of work, and you know what happened to 2020. So I really wanted to take advantage of this revival year\u2014and experience a WSOP that didn\u2019t melt me when I walked outdoors.<\/p>\n

I made my plans as soon as the schedule was announced, centering the trip around three bracelet events:\u00a0#24 $600 PLO 8-Max<\/strong>,\u00a0#27 $1500 HORSE<\/strong>, and\u00a0#28 $1000 PLO 8-Max<\/strong>. Plus the usual $180 mega satellites and the daily $580 mega satellite. I figured either this WSOP would be one of the easiest (with so many players choosing not to or unable to travel to the US) or really hard (with the people who were dedicated to making it to the WSOP being concentrated with pros).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Up at 4am to catch the first flight to Vegas today. Disregard the enticing $250 offers from the airline<\/strong> to give up my seat for a later flight\u2014we\u2019re on a schedule, man!<\/p>\n

Plane lands around 8:30. Now, spite months of mental preparation for this trip, I made \u00a0a very essential error: fucking\u00a0Columbus Day<\/strong> (I\u2019m using that instead of\u00a0Indigenous Peoples\u2019 Day<\/strong> because this is a comment about how the day screwed me over). I wasn\u2019t planning to travel with a huge wad of money, just enough to get me through the first day or so, but Friday was a bitch and Saturday I had stuff to do around the house, I old just pick up my cash from the bank on Monday, right? Did I remember that banks were going o be closed on Monday? No. And even the cheap-ass PLO game was more than an ATM puts out.<\/p>\n

So, when I get to Las Vegas, I need to get to a branch of my bank, of which there are a number in town, one just a couple miles from the airport. It even opens at 9. I get there a quarter hour before it opens and it\u2019s a cubbyhole inside the student union at UNLV. I just hope it has money.<\/p>\n

Branch opens up, the very nice branch assistant tells me my specific ask is no problem, until they get to the part where they give me the money<\/strong> and they tell me that there\u2019s some weird thing about the way the business account I have had for my sole proprietorship for more than a quarter of a century is set up in their system and I\u2019m somehow not the \u201cowner\u201d of the account. Fie on you, Christopher Columbus! Anyway, it\u2019s resolved by me transferring the amount I need to my linked personal account and taking it out of there. I was reminded that when I had some a paycheck\u2014from\u00a0Caesar\u2019s Entertainment<\/strong><\/em>, one of the largest employers here\u2014to my account a few years ago, one of the branches in a grocery store\u00a0couldn\u2019t take my deposit<\/em> without the branch manager being there, which they were not. It was not, dear reader, a large sum of money.<\/p>\n

So that\u2019s all before 10am.<\/p>\n

\n

Hardly any line @wsop<\/a> registration cage right now! Come and get my 4-card money, suckers! pic.twitter.com\/eKmdvumf3n<\/a><\/p>\n

— Poker Mutant (@pokermutant) October 12, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n