Gray-haired poker TRs: Living the WSOP dream

Some random thoughts as I am now less than two months away from WSOP 2025, which will be my third WSOP:

-- In an earlier post on this thread, Leon suggested I need to eat some better food and see some shows during my WSOP trips. Well, I'm not going to see any shows, because that just doesn't interest me. But I am going to eat some better food. I don't need to get the lay of the land on my first night like I did last year since I am now familiar with the ParisShoe. Also, I scheduled an off day at the start of the trip. I am thinking that I will eat at Eiffel Tower Restaurant and then Joe's Seafood Prime Steak & Stone Crab my first two nights. I also suspect I will eat at Gordon Ramsey and Mon Ami Gabi in the Paris somewhere along the line since I enjoyed eating there last WSOP.

-- In recent months I have gotten bored with studying charts, so I have been watching Youtube videos from tournaments in which you watch a feature table every hand with hole cards shown. On every hand folded or bet I think along as to what I would do compared to how the actual players make their decisions. There are multiple Day 1s, then Day 2, Day 3, Final Table. I have been doing this for a couple of hours per night. I did so for the $25K WSOP Super Main Bahamas, 2024 WSOP Circuit Los Angeles Main Event, etc. What I have found interesting is how much more aggressive my tables were at the 2024 WSOP as compared to the tables on the videos I have been watching. I don't know if this is reality or just a case of small sample size.

-- Last year at the WSOP I went in planning to make 2x preflop raises that have become standard, but I chickened out and mostly raised old school 3x. During the tournaments I played during my recent vacation I went 2x throughout, so I feel confident I will go 2x at this year's WSOP.

-- I know I need to open up a bit more from early position. I have been reluctant in the past to play A-10 suited, J-10 suited, K-J suited from UTG/early position. My goal is to to get outside my comfort zone and play these holdings.

-- I feel I have become more willing to bluff on scary boards. I'd like to increase this even more.

-- I need to be more willing to 3 bet with medium holdings when I sense someone is abusing my big blind.

-- As I have already written previously, I fully intended to embrace rebuys this year. I think this will result in me being able to play a bit more aggressively than in the past.

-- I'd like to make my opponent's face tough decisions more often than they make me make tough decisions.

-- I don't imagine I will be the insane guy at the table, but I hope to ramp up my aggression by recognizing when I have a tight image at the table, and then start bluffing much more.

-- I have yet to receive a rush of premiums at the WSOP when the blinds get high/threatening. I would really love to experience this.

-- I had my first WSOP cash last year, but I made the money on fumes chip wise. I would really like to experience making the money with a healthy chip stack this year.

Absolutely. You are leaving Ev on the table skipping those hand. Two of the examples should be opened as offsuit too.

I would suggest to use 2.5X and drop open size to min around 30bb's.

3x is fine in the early levels when lots of pots go multi-way and people are getting great implieds to draw. It's good to tax their curiosity. 2x is good later in the tournament when most hands are opener vs. BB. At that point you don't benefit much by sizing up. I don't advocate one static sizing throughout the tournament since stack dynamics change a lot from the early levels to the late game. I tend to start at 3x and gradually size down over the course of the day.

Suited Ax and suited connectors can also be very good to occasionally play as semi-bluffs. Big flop potential, capable of making monster disguised hands, and easy to dump if you encounter a lot of heat. Having a few bluffs here and there will get your value paid because observant players will see that you're not just nut peddling.

Sounds like your prep has been positive and your mentality is in a good place. Without being a psycho maniac who tries to win every pot, I think it's good to have an assertive mindset. Focus on the routes to victory and not the bad things that can happen. "I'd rather be a hammer than a nail" is excellent advice for NLHE.

Looking forward to following your WSOP 25 journey.

I agree with all of this.

You and me both. If you manage to accomplish this, please share your secret.

I've only managed this once - made it to Day 3. Money was on Day 2, but the pay jumps were tiny because it was a $500 tournament. Don't make the mistake I did. I was so incredulous, that I started playing very sloppily, going so far past expectation. Try to play your best all the way to the end. I still had a decent stack, 11-12 bigs. I wondered how far I might have gotten if I played better at the end.

Actually, I didn't get overwhelmed, it was just the opposite. I relaxed way too much, got too lazy, figuring that hey, I already got much further than I expected. Or maybe even deserved. So I didn't put in the effort to play well. I don't think I had been all-in at all to that point. I also had been card dead for 2 or 3 hours, just straight folding the whole time. I had basically quit playing because I had nothing to play. When I finally got dealt AJ suited, after an endless string of T7 offsuit, I had "forgotten" how to play.

If the abuser is likely to fold more often, you should pull your additional 3-bets from hands that can easily fold to a 4-bet, rather than marginal hands that hate a 4-bet. If the abuser is likely to call with a too-wide range and rarely 4-bet, then adding hands to the bottom of the 3-bet value range and removing some bluffs is the exploit.

GL

In post #774 I mentioned that I was selling an office building of mine and that it looked like the closing was heading toward being the very beginning of my 2025 WSOP. Showing foresight I got my attorney to request a closing date that would be a few days earlier. I was busy patting myself on the back, when my plan went to hell. Out of nowhere the buyer bailed without an explanation why. I suspect they got turned down by their bank for a mortgage. Disappointed to lose the deal, but happy that I wouldn't have to deal with a closing during WSOP tourney breaks. I don't get the lack of courtesy to not explain why they bailed, but I guess the reason doesn't matter. Out is out, and the reason ultimately doesn't matter. Not my way of doing business, but we move on. A real estate bad beat story. No one wants to hear extensive details about the tale of woe.

Apparently the sale of this building is a magnet for the start of my WSOP. A new buyer has emerged. We have agreed to all financial terms. The final contract still has to be hammered out, but there really aren't any contentious issues remaining. Just lawyer language to negotiate. After reading the initial draft of the contract late today, it struck me that the buyer wants to close fairly quickly. I took a look at the calendar and, damnit, we are careening toward a closing during the first few days of my 2025 WSOP. It looks like I will probably be docusigning the final contract for the closing during a WSOP tourney break in the Paris hallways. I obviously want the deal to go through. The timing is just not optimal. There are far worse problems to have. I'll stop whining.

Meanwhile, I continue to power through Youtube poker tournament coverage where I get to watch every hand from the same table for hours on end. Since I get to see everyone's cards, I play along by saying in my head what I would do for EVERY decision at the table. In other words UTG has 2s-7c, I'd fold. UTG +1 has kh-3c, I'd fold. UTG+2 has 10s-Js I'd raise 2x the blinds. And so on. Every decision of every player, I think what I would do throughout the entire hand. And I think through what I would do if I didn't know what other players have. For example SB has A-A and BB has K-K. I don't think to myself what I would do based upon seeing the opponent's cards. When A-A opens with a bet, I don't say I'd fold my K-K. I think that facing a SB open, how much I would 3-bet. And then I think about how the actual player in the hand played things versus what I would have done. It's really interesting to study this way. It forces me to make thousands of decisions as opposed to studying charts in a vacuum. It allows me to not just consider position, starting hands and bet sizing, it also allows me to do so factoring in the style of each opponent at the table (TAG vs batshit crazy, thinking pro vs donkey, etc.). Whereas studying charts or GTOWizard is necessary but tedious, watching these videos are really fun.

So far I have finished the videos from 2024 $25K WSOP Super Main Bahamas. I watched Day 1B, 1C, 1D, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, and finally the Final table. Each video was 8-12 hours long.

I also just finished all of the videos for the 2024 WSOP Circuit Los Angeles. The videos for this tourney were Day 1A, 1B, 1C, Day 2, Final Table. All of the videos were about seven hours each. The Final Table went quickly and was a much shorter video.

I have just started to watch the videos of the 2024 WSOP Circuit Los Angeles Tournament of Champions. After I finish that, WSOPE 2024, €1.100 WSOP Circuit NLH Main Events (Ring #10) live from King's Resort, WSOPE Diamond High Roller 2024, and WSOP Paradise 2023 Main Event are tourneys on the horizon for me to watch mass videos.

The key to the usefullness of these videos is you see EVERY hand. Even the boring ones. These videos are not highlight reels. You get to experience the total table dynamic.

Given that online poker is illegal in my state, and I don't want to play on unregulated sites, watching these videos are a way to see a high volume of hands. For me it's the equivalent to multitabling online as a way to speed up the experience learning curve.

One last item to discuss regarding the 2025 WSOP. I have previously written that I hated the one Daily Deepstack I played at WSOP 2024. I found the environment to be dreary. I vowed not to play in one ever again. I think I might reverse myself. In my upcoming 13-day 2025 WSOP if I don't make Day 2 of an early tourney, I could conceivably have an off day. If that happens, my thought is to play in the early afternoon Daily Deepstack, and really push my boundaries of playing GTO approved hands that I have previously avoided. It probably won't go well, but it's an opportunity to widen my playable ranges in a tourney I won't care that much about. It reminds me of a player I was at a table with at the Horseshoe in 2024 WSOP, and when our table broke we both got moved to the Paris Ballroom where we landed at the same table. He had been a real wild card all day playing some crazy hands and somehow building a huge chip stack. As we walked from the Horseshoe to Paris, he described his style from the very start as, "I figured I'd play crazy and either build a big stack, or I'd get knocked out early and I'd go find something else to play." My approach to WSOP 2025 Daily Deepstack won't be mayhem with a side of insanity, but I will take the opportunity to play a more wide open style than my usual comfort zone and see what happens. I suspect not caring might be very freeing.

FWIW I sold a house awhile back, and my workplace sprung a 2 week work travel on me. The title company Fed Ex'ed the paperwork to me, I found a notary, and boom, it was done. Then a week after I got back, my stupid employer laid me off. Seems like a stupid set of decisions, they could have saved themselves a couple grand by not flying me all the way to the east coast, 2 weeks of rental car and lodging.

We put our house on the market one Friday morning and we were signing papers on our phones at the poker table that night 😉

Will be interesting to see what happens in the Daily Deepstack if you end up playing -- will be fun to mix things up and see what happens.

GL with the trip and closing, rppoker (and juggling both).

Might be a good idea to ensure with your side that you may sign electronically.

When I was doing something on my mother's estate, some document(s) could not be electronically signed. They needed a physical signature. I can't remember if that was the house sale or something else, so you may be o.k. Would hate for you to get out there and find out then.

Thanks for the advice. I just checked the first draft of the contract and as expected it does allow for electronic signature, which will make things much more workable from Las Vegas. If you see someone at the WSOP on break outside the Paris Ballroom on the phone and is the ONLY person in the hallway not talking about a hand history, that will be me trying to close the building sale.

As for estate documents that you have to be physically present for to sign, I did have that experience as well when I was the executor for my Dad's estate. There were certain documents that required a Medallion Stamp that I had to be present when signing. A Medallion Stamp is a gigantic pain in the butt. Most banks don't offer it. Heck, many banks don't even know what it is. It was really difficult to find a bank that had Medallion Stamp service and then they only offer it if you are a client of the bank. I have no idea why such an esoteric/obscure stamp is required.

This will be my third WSOP, but I am every bit as excited right now as I was during the build up to my first two WSOPs. Which of course makes the wait interminable, excruciating, unceasing, wearisome (I could go on and on with the help of a thesaurus, but you get the idea). It's like taking freshman math in college, and you keep looking at the clock which barely seems to be moving and then, argh, did it just go backward?

Meanwhile, with time moving at a glacial pace, I am experiencing ferocious inner turmoil between Old Poker Me and New Poker Me.

An example of what's going on in my head. From UTG I'm dealt 10-J suited.

Old Poker Me: "Clear fold."

New Poker Me: "Bet 2x the BB."

Old Poker Me: "Is something wrong with your eyesight? Jack high. Fold. Plus, why only 2x? What's wrong with 3x?"

New Poker Me: "Live a little, man. If you wait, wait, wait for aces you'll never build a big chip stack. And as for 3x, the year 2000 just called and wants its opening strategy back."

Old Poker Me: "If you keep betting 10-J from UTG you'll not only not build a big chip stack, but you'll end up with no chip stack. You'll live a little all right, but you'll be living life from the massive rebuy line. Come on, man. You're talking about opening from UTG. From UTG!!!!!!! The entire table still to act. Do you have a death wish?

New Poker Me: "The charts say it's an open."

Old Poker Me: "Here we go. The chart says, the chart says, the chart says. I'm so sick of hearing what the chart says. That's like predicting the weather from the Farmer's Almanac. You play too many hands, which can be exploited."

New Poker Me: "You play too few hands, which can be exploited."

Old Poker Me: "I last much longer playing my way."

New Poker Me: "Enjoy your occasional min cash."

Old Poker Me: "I will. I get to tell everyone back home I made the money."

New Poker Me: "Yeah, you'll make the money ... with crumbs for chips when the bubble bursts. If I make the money with my approach I am much more likely to have a sizable chip stack to give me a shot at making a deep run."

Old Poker Me: "That's a big 'if' since even if you build a big chip stack you will eventually light those chips on fire with your Crazytown approach."

New Poker Me: "Crazy like a fox."

Old Poker Me: "You're too reckless."

New Poker Me: "You're too gutless."

Old Poker Me: "One other thing. You're talking a big game. You've never actually employed a pure GTO approach in a WSOP tourney. What makes you think you can pull it off?"

New Poker Me: "I don't know about a pure GTO approach, but my goal is to play more of a GTO approach than I have in the past."

Old Poker Me: "I don't think you can pull it off."

New Poker Me: "That's what I'm going to WSOP 2025 to find out."

Old Poker Me: "I think you'll chicken out."

New Poker Me: "I hope not."

Lol…if you really want to live a little try opening J9s from utg!

Love the inner monologue and I hope you employ “gto” aggression repeatedly this summer — as a reformed omc you’ll get even more folds than gto because villains will always think you have it!

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LOL nice post. I for one will be following along to see if the new poker you can pull it off. GL.

Go NPM!

ReSubbed. Go get em!

My internal countdown clock has now kicked in. It is exactly one month until I set foot in Las Vegas for my WSOP 2025. I can feel the excitement building. With this being my third WSOP, I am happy that I still feel the thrill. I hope I never get to the point where I have a been there, done that feeling about the WSOP. Yes, I have a level of comfort in terms of knowing the lay of the land and what to expect now that I have a couple of WSOPs under my belt. But I am happy that my anticipation is sky high. My love of the game is through the roof.

At age 63 I'm not interested in competing in some athletic, physical competition that will only get me injured. But I do love competing, and that is something I can do at the WSOP. The good news is the leg pain I was feeling at last year's WSOP seems under control. Every now and then I feel a twinge, but nothing persistent. That said, I am going to wait until after the WSOP to start playing golf again. I don't want to do anything that might cause the leg pain to flare up. As I like to say to my wife (which drives her crazy), I don't get hurt from my spot on the couch. I'm not hard to find. When I'm not working, I'll be planted on the couch with remote control in hand. I'm rooting for Steph Curry to make one last deep run to legacy enhancing greatness. I've got a steady diet of watching the NBA playoffs planned for the next month.

Speaking of diet, I am probably five pounds above what I'd like my weight to be. Given that I anticipate my food intake in Las Vegas to lead to likely weight gain, I should probably try to shed some pounds before I get there. On the other hand, a little bit fat and happy is not a bad thing. We'll have to see. If you see someone at the WSOP eating a salad, that ain't me.

I feel good about my willingness to widen the range of hands I will play at this year's WSOP. I don't know how it will go, but I am looking forward to loosening up a little bit. Not saying I will be the crazy guy at the table, but I am going to try to be more creative than in the past. I'm sure that might lead to some mistakes and more uncomfortable situations than was the case last year at the WSOP, but I am willing to embrace the uncertainty. Call this my WSOP of experimentation.

Meanwhile, for one of my office buildings that I have up for sale, there has been an on again, off again, on again, off again and finally a more certain on again nature to negotiations with a prospective buyer. We finally hashed out the last real sticking point today. It looks like the closing might be trending toward my time at the WSOP. Not ideal, but it can be done via phone calls during tournament breaks and ultimately docusign. I look forward to a time when the business world will not intrude on my poker breaks. I am hoping that by next years WSOP I will have sold all the office buildings that take up so much of my time. That would mean the investments I still have will be less intrusive during poker tournaments.

Where my head is right now is I know the tournaments I plan to play, I know that I am going to embrace rebuys for the first time, I know the style of play I want to experiment with, I know the restaurants I want to eat at. I am ready. I am ready to play a heavy dose of no limit hold 'em. I am ready for a WSOP of run good. I am ready to experience all of the magnificence that is the WSOP. I am ready to collect new stories that I can share in this thread.

I am ready for more Gray-Haired Poker at the WSOP!

You need to open your ranges a lot if you consider JTs way too wide. I think you also have to factor in table image and how the table has been playing. IF you have been folding for 3 orbits, your opening criteria needs to go way down. IF you haven't play a hand in an hour and it folds to you on the button, just try and steal some blinds with any 2 suited.

Hi PhatPots, thanks for chiming in. I consider JTs an easy open from any position. The difference is that now I can happily raise that from UTG, whereas a year ago I would really have to grit my teeth to do so (and maybe not do it back then). And yes, I agree that changing gears is extremely important.

As for it folding to the button, that happened maybe three times in almost two weeks at last year's WSOP at my tables. Not three times when I was the button. Three times when anyone was the button. I think I saw the big blind receive a walk one time my entire WSOP. Every hand there was an opening bet before the button, and most of the time there was an open and a 3-bet. The tables I was at were waaaaaay more aggressive than the tables I was at during the 2019 WSOP. Furthermore, my 2024 WSOP tables were massively more aggressive preflop than the 2024 WSOP circuit videos (Los Angeles, Bahamas) streamed by GG that I have recently watched. That's part of why I played so tight (with the occasional walk on the wild side to take advantage of my table image) in 2024 since I felt that was the best way to combat so much really loose overaggression. I don't know if this much opposing aggression was simply an aberration of a small sample size or if WSOP Las Vegas players are just much more aggressive than the players in the circuit events I have been watching videos of.

In any event, thanks for your thoughts. My lack of poker friends who can challenge my play in discussions is one of my biggest leaks.

I relate to that. I expect to be there in mid-June. Tomorrow marks the first day when I'll be able to say, "I'm going to Vegas next month." Always exciting.

I think your study will pay dividends. I'd caution that while it's good to have gears, poker is a fluid game. Play whatever style the table dictates. Don't force the idea of bluffs and aggression if the climate isn't right. Sometimes tight is right and sometimes you need to bring the barrels. I think you know that, but it bears repeating.

I suspect you'll enjoy the Colossus. It really epitomizes what the WSOP is about.

I see that other people are posting their planned day-by-day WSOP action in LVL, so I'll join the party.

5/30 Arrive, pick up rental car, check in to hotel, go grocery shopping, dinner at Eiffel Tower Restaurant
5/31 Maybe play a Daily Deepstack, but I doubt it. Relax, register for some WSOP tourneys, dinner at Joe's Seafood
6/1 Event 10: $600 NLH Deepstack (2 bullets if necessary)
6/2 Day 2 of Event 10, or a Daily Deepstack (try out some tactics I normally don't employ)
6/3 Off day or maybe a Daily Deepstack
6/4 Event 19, flight A: $500 NLH Colossus (2 bullets if necessary)
6/5 Event 19, flight B: $500 NLH Colossus (2 bullets if necessary)*
6/6 Event 19, flight C: $500 NLH Colossus (2 bullets if necessary)*
6/7 Event 19, flight D: $500 NLH Colossus (2 bullets if necessary)*
* -- If make Day 2 in an early flight then will play something non-WSOP these days (probably Venetian or Wynn)
6/8 Day 2 of Event 19, or off day
6/9 Day 3 of Event 19, or Event 31 $800 NLH 8-handed deepstack (2 bullets if necessary)
6/10 Day 2 of Event 31, or Event 34 $1,500 Super Turbo Bounty NLH (1 bullet), or maybe some tourney at Orleans or Resort World

As for selling action, I will be playing 100% of myself. Reasons why include: 1) I can't even begin to imagine why someone would want to buy a piece of me, 2) It sounds like work to sell action and all that goes with that, and 3) While I am OK with losing my own money, I'd feel bad about losing other people's money.

One difference between this year and last year is I am giving myself the option of the occasional day off. Last year I didn't do this enough, and I think I will play better if I don't grind quite so relentlessly (but I won't be surprised if I wake up on my possible off days and decide to go play something).

One thing I need to do when I first arrive to Las Vegas is find out how to rebuy since I have never done a rebuy but intend to do so this WSOP. Last year it sounds like the way to go was to prefund your account and go to kiosks as needed for a faster rebuy (although I think I saw somewhere on 2+2 a rumor that the kiosks might not be back this year). I also need to ask a floor person to explain to me how to know what line to get in to rebuy. Is there one rebuy line for all of the tournaments going on, or does each tournament have its own rebuy line?

I believe that what we are talking about is technically "re-entry", which I don't say to be a complete pedant, but only because there is an actual functional difference even though the terms are often used interchangeably. Re-buy means you stay at your seat when you bust and get a fresh stack. Re-entry means you are effectively entering the tournament again like an entirely new player, with a new seat draw altogether.

I'm generally a one-bullet-and-done guy with tournaments unless I bust in the first few levels. As it turns out, my only experience with re-entry at the WSOP is the Colossus. I had been playing in Paris. Busted in a flip very early in the day. If I'm remembering correctly, I re-registered online and printed my ticket at a kiosk. The ticket had no seat info. Instead it sent me to a separate line for re-entry (and late reg?) that was in the Horseshoe tournament space, where I waited maybe 30 minutes before receiving my new seat assignment.

This was 2023 when the WSOP still did all their online registration via Bravo. If they are switching to a new app, my guess is that the process would be fund your account in advance, re-enter online as needed, print your ticket, and then report to the line for seat assignments. That is my best guess, though I defer to the expertise of the more experienced.

I will add that my day 1 Milly Maker table in 2024 happened to be situated right next to a late reg/re-reg line where a steady stream of players was waiting throughout the day for seat assignments. This reaffirms the idea that your late reg/re-reg assignment will not be printed straight on your ticket like it would be if you registered in advance. You will need to re-enter, wait in line with your ticket, and be assigned a seat.

Perhaps it will be different with the WSOP app though...

FYP 😉

Isn't it also true that a re-entry means another tournament fee, and a re-buy does not?

Anyway, best of luck rppoker and everyone else hitting the WSOP this year. Looking forward to tagging along vicariously!