Gray-haired poker TRs: Living the WSOP dream
At the age of 62 (AARP members unite!), I have decided that I will write a trip report for my 2024 trek to the World Ser
Hmmm. Have I bit off more than I can chew? I still think I can do it. Gotta lose 5.4 pounds in less than two weeks. Monday. Back to work. We have a refrigerator at my office which my office manager keeps fully stocked for myself and our other employees with various drinks. I am the only Dr Pepper drinker.Normally, Monday mornings are a huge relief to me. You see, outside of the
Diet Dr Pepper has 1 calorie.
But Diet Dr Pepper has all those other bad things :( Wine is better for you 😉
My way to cut wine is to drink sparkling water (from a Soda Stream) with a few dashes of bitters (black walnut and orange are my favorites). Works great -- it's not sweet (I like dry wine) and goes well with most foods. Maybe try adding a little flavor to your water -- that's how my husband cut down on Diet Mt Dew.
But Diet Dr Pepper has all those other bad things :( Wine is better for you 😉My way to cut wine is to drink sparkling water (from a Soda Stream) with a few dashes of bitters (black walnut and orange are my favorites). Works great -- it's not sweet (I like dry wine) and goes well with most foods. Maybe try adding a little flavor to your water -- that's how my husband cut down o
Unfortunately, I don't like wine.
As for water, I find that if I pour the water into a glass filled to the top with ice, the coldness makes it very drinkable for me.
What you will find with me is that my eating/drinking habits share two very etched-in-stone characteristics: 1) I am extremely picky, and 2) Pretty much everything I like is bad for you.
Good luck with the weight loss and the WSOP.
Day 2 of Operation Weight Loss.
This isn't so bad.
I skipped lunch again, which wasn't all that difficult. I expected to be starving by the time I got home for dinner, but that wasn't the case. Yes, I was hungry for dinner, but it wasn't ravenous hunger.
Time to see what Mrs. rppoker had cooked up. My older daughter and her long-time boyfriend were over at our house. When Mrs. rppoker took dinner out of the oven, The Boyfriend took one look and announced he was going to Taco Bell. That hardly seems fair.
Then, in a well-meaning but brutal offer, The Boyfriend said to me, "Do you want me to get anything from Taco Bell for you?"
Be strong, be strong, be strong.
"No thanks," I said. "I'm trying to lose weight before I go to Las Vegas."
The Boyfriend: "Oh, yeah. ... (pause) ... Sorry."
To my surprise, Mrs. rppoker gave me a dinner that was healthy, not fattening and ... (gasp) ... TASTY."
It was Mediterranean salmon with olives, feta cheese, garlic and olive oil. I took a couple of bites and said, "This is really good. Is it fattening? It tastes too good to be low on calories."
Mrs. rppoker insisted it was a wild salmon that was low on calories and all of the other stuff was not terribly fattening. She's the expert on these things, so if she says it's not fattening, it's not fattening.
To go with the salmon, there was steamed broccoli. This may sound like something I wouldn't like. I pretty much dislike all vegetables. Except broccoli. That I can eat.
The meal was not painful to eat. Low expectations but a great result. Sort of like a poker Big Blind special.
Heck, I even had dessert. An organic chocolate chip cookie dough protein bar that my wife buys all the time. Pretty much every other protein bar that she buys has all of the taste of cardboard. And if you look at the label on the organic chocolate chip cookie dough protein bar, it says, "Vegan * Non-GMO * No soy or dairy ingredients." Which to me translates to, "Don't eat me!" But here's the thing, this one specific protein bar tastes good. I told Mrs. rppoker a long time ago to buy twice as many of them as she otherwise would, because I like to eat them."
It's only two days, but so far this is tolerable. It's not a way of eating that I want to do long term, but I think I can make through another 10 days of this.
My confidence is very high that I can pull this off.
Don't get cocky, rppoker, don't get cocky.
I was excited about the protein bars, but my husband insists on 3 grams net carbs or less :( Glad you like them!
I'm pretty sure me posting pictures of me eating broccoli every day now until I leave for the WSOP will get old real fast, so let's try something different to fill the thread now until my big weigh-in on May 30:
..........
Things I’m thinking about while waiting for my WSOP trip to begin #1
I don’t just have a year of training site studying in my poker toolbox as I get ready for this year's WSOP. I also have my “one time” in my toolbox. I have never once used my “one time.” I think it is something you only get to use once in your life. Not an official rule, but it is a rppoker unwritten rule of poker.
There are those who think they can use a “one time” every tournament they play in. I think they fail to recognize that this kind of overuse dilutes the power of their “one time.”
I once saw on reddit someone wrote, “I’m a poker dealer and four people used their ‘one time’ all at once.”
I’m saving my “one time” for when it really, really, really matters (which may never happen, but so be it). I’m counting on this lack of use on my part to make my “one time” all powerful whenever the time comes that I invoke its devastating force.
Plus, I think using “one time” more than once angers the poker Gods. I can’t prove it, but I do believe it.
After he won the main event, I believe Joe Hachem has been quoted as saying “one MORE time” 😀
Things I’m thinking about while waiting for my WSOP trip to begin #2
I don’t get why someone would get a massage at the poker table. Whenever I see someone getting a massage at my table, it seems to me that their focus goes way down. I realize this generalization may not be true of everyone who gets a massage at the poker table, but whenever I have been at a WSOP table where someone is getting a massage, you can see their eyes getting heavy, plus they only look at their cards and not what dynamics are taking place elsewhere at the table.
One thing I can say for sure, you will not see me getting a massage at a WSOP table.
Clearly the players in the following clip disagree with me.
He only has to drink it for 3 weeks, not long enough for the bad stuff to take effect.
Try cherry Diet Dr. Pepper. I used to pound Diet Dr Pepper like an addict. Until I developed a thing with caffeine that causes migraines that don't go away for 2 weeks, puking most of the time.
As long as Dr Pepper has been brought up, I can report I have gone 6 consecutive days without drinking a Dr Pepper as part of my attempt to drop weight pre-WSOP.
And on the Dr Pepper front, I just read something that has inspired me. I just read about Elizabeth Sullivan who died in 2017 at the age of 106. Before she died she was asked what the secret to her longevity was and she said the key was that she drank three Dr Peppers a day.
My favorite part of the interview was when she said, “Well at 103 I didn’t think I’d make it, but I’m still perking along. I started drinking (Dr Pepper) about 40 years ago. Three a day. Every doctor that sees me says they’ll kill you, but they die and I don’t. So there must be a mistake somewhere.”
Once my Weight Loss Challenge ends and I head to Las Vegas, I intend to go on an absolute Dr Pepper drinking binge.
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=200...
I’m a fan of getting massages sometimes, and I’m glad they’re available.
I get them when I fresh off the plane, or just coming off a long drive. It helps work out the tension in my neck and shoulders after traveling.
I also tend to play tighter and get less involved while I’m getting a massage. It would be embarrassing to interrupt it for going broke and having to reload in the middle of it.
Can see both sides of thought on table massages. I get them occasionally.
While I agree you probably do lose a bit of focus on the things going on at the table when you're getting one, they can have other benefits as TJ mentioned.
Can be useful to avoid tilt and play tighter. And sometimes you just need to get those knots and kinks worked out.
Things I’m thinking about while waiting for my WSOP trip to begin #3
I think being a poker reporter at the WSOP must be incredibly difficult. I mean, where do you go during the early stages of a tournament. You have no idea who the chip leaders are. Do you just stand at a single table with a superstar at it and hope something interesting happens to them? If yes, you have no idea who is leading the tournament or making a big run and that goes under reported. Do you bounce all over the place? If yes, you probably still have no idea who is leading the way. And even if you find a player with a massive amount of chips, you have no way of knowing how they accumulated that many chips.
It reminds me of my old sports writing days when I covered a PGA tournament in the town of a newspaper I worked for. Basically, the first few rounds, all of the media members simply hung out in the media tent. When players near the top of the leaderboard finished their round, they came in the media tent and gave a shot-by-shot recap of their entire round of golf and then answered questions. This may sound lazy by the media to sit on their butts in the press tent, but it really was the only way to cover the event the first few rounds since you never knew where the red-hot action was taking place (i.e. someone off the lead catching fire or someone atop the leaderboard imploding).
Yes, in the final round if the final twosome has separated from the field you can try to follow them around, much like when the final table is reached in poker a reporter can plant themselves there and report on the action from a single table. For the most part, however, both golf and poker tournaments seem almost impossible to cover because of the vast size of the field that is very spread out.
For a preview of Pokernews reporting plans for WSOP 2025 go to https://www.pokernews.com/news/2025/05/p...
Now that you're off binging Dr. Pepper, that should be your celebratory drink after a successful performance.
Well, the first one, anyway.
Things I’m thinking about while waiting for my WSOP trip to begin #4
The topic is: ordering something to drink from a server at a WSOP table.
I don’t like alcohol, so that is out. I bring my own Dr Pepper as well as a bottle of water to the table, so I don’t need that.
What does sound good is a strawberry milkshake or a banana smoothie. I wonder what would happen if I tried to order one of those? On the one hand, it sounds ridiculous. On the other hand, is the expense of a milkshake or smoothie any different than the cost of the various liquor orders I have seen placed?
I’m sort of kidding, but I’m sort of curious.
I mean, can you order a strawberry daquiri at the WSOP tables? If yes, is it really that much of a leap to strawberry milkshake?
The Wynn has a drink called a strawberry julius, which is similar to a daiquiri or a smoothie. Maybe the best free drink in Vegas, with or without liquor in it.
It also activates the strawberry julius rungood.
Things I’m thinking about while waiting for my WSOP trip to begin #5
Play at the WSOP tables does not have the tanking I expected. Although admittedly a small sample size, every WSOP tourney I have played in has seen all of the players making their decisions quickly. No time wasting. It is very rare for someone to tank, and when they do it is probably for like 30 seconds to a minute. Two minutes was probably the longest tank I’ve experienced. I’ve never seen a massive tank. Even on the bubble, short stacks (which included me) were not taking very much time to fold.
Maybe this is because I have not made a Final Table or a featured table. Consider the reporting of the following WSOP mega tanks (9 minutes and 19 minutes respectively):
Ain't nothin' gonna stop me
Exactly one week until my weigh-in.
I have not cheated one time. I've had no Dr Pepper. I have not snacked one time. I have eliminated potatoes and replaced them with broccoli at dinner time. I'm eating a lot less than usual. My discipline has been unwavering.
The surprising thing is I do not feel hungry. I thought this would be a painful process, but I am cruising.
I have not weighed myself since the weight loss game plan was first put in place a because: 1) I'm sticking to the process and not the short-term results, and 2) I want it to be a surprise. That said, I am certain I will get from my starting weight of 195.4 pounds to my target weight of 190.0 or lower. Is there an over/under on my weigh-in weight? If there is, don't bet against me.
189.8 is my guess. I've lost five pounds in two weeks just cutting back on wine and eating healthier and a little less, and I've lost 5 lb.! Good luck.
Things I’m thinking about while waiting for my WSOP trip to begin #4The topic is: ordering something to drink from a server at a WSOP table. I don’t like alcohol, so that is out. I bring my own Dr Pepper as well as a bottle of water to the table, so I don’t need that.What does sound good is a strawberry milkshake or a banana smoothie. I wonder what would happen if I tried to or
I think you'll give the server a good chuckle.
The only safe things, by safe I mean you'll have a more than even chance of getting it, are water and coffee.
The Wynn has a drink called a strawberry julius, which is similar to a daiquiri or a smoothie. Maybe the best free drink in Vegas, with or without liquor in it.
It also activates the strawberry julius rungood.
replace "strawberry julius" with "fresh squeezed watermelon juice" and you're entirely correct.
