Gray-haired poker TRs: Living the WSOP dream

June 7, 2025: Venetian $800 No Limit Hold’em Ultimate Stack Tournament
Bonus Coverage

Interesting info on the eventual Final Table (top 8 since 9th place finisher’s name was withheld for some reason):

International flavor:
-- Four Americans
-- The other four players were from Colombia, Belgium, United Kingdom, China

Career earnings by player (per Hendon Mob)
-- $3,014,910
-- $1,532,840
-- $593,934
-- $470,334
-- $83,531
-- $17,207
-- Two players I could not find information on

I think you happily get it in with JJ there.

People play bad.

You worry too much about hendon mobs rp. Plenty of players with high 6 figures and even 7 figure Hendon Mobs who are losing players

I find it interesting information for the trip report. I find it mildly useful to actually playing, but I try to focus way more on how the person plays than what Hendon Mob says about them. It's a piece of information, but far from the most important piece of information. Very often I observe that a person's Hendon Mob earnings do not seem to correlate with their actual level of play. That said, I have to consider that there is merit to your observation.

My range is very likely too tight when faced with an UTG bet from a tight player followed by an UTG+2 raise from a newish player who has been folding every hand. In this situation a give their hand range a ton of credit, perhaps too much credit. J-J is a call in order to build a huge stack, but it also means there is a good chance I get decimated by the outcome. I struggle with my attachment to getting to continue playing.

I've got a six-hour car ride ahead of me in real life, so I won't be able to post for much of today.

Just got back home from Michigan. What normally takes 5 hours 15 minutes turned into an 8 hour 20 minutes drive from hell.

A major rainstorm which greatly reduced visibility toward the start of the drive. Four separate car accidents (not me) on the side of the highway, which in some cases turned three lanes into one lane, and in every case slowed things down because drivers have to gawk. Multiple construction projects on the highway in Michigan to slow progress. And then once I hit Chicago where massive, ginormous road construction that has been going on for quite some time meant that the final 30 miles of my drive took almost three hours.

This required way more patience than is needed on the felt when you are card dead for a couple of levels and have to keep folding.

What does any of this have to do with this thread? It means I am pretty tired. I'll start the thread back up again in the morning.

Tomorrow's storyline? My Day 2 of the Colossus, which was a wild roller coaster of emotions that I'd describe as an electrifying, edge-of-my-seat, try-not-to-scream thrill ride that included glum outlooks where I needed lightening in a bottle to strike along with the despair of big hands not connecting with the board. Up, down, sideways, up, down, sideways in which momentum giveth and momentum taketh away. Having a huge hand. Having to get it in light to stay ahead of the blinds. Smashed by the deck. Betrayed by the deck. I was like the ball in a pinball machine. All over the place.

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.

Wait a minute, someone already wrote that last sentence. What the dickens was I thinking? Ignore the previous paragraph.

Let's just say this. It was the most exhilarating day I've had so far in my admittedly short poker career. It was the most swingy day of poker I ever experienced. It was the most fun I ever had playing poker.

June 8, 2025, the middle of the night
Colossus Day 2 tables are posted, and Hendon Mob says my table’s top money winner is to my immediate left … this is starting to feel serious

1:00 am

My Day 2 table at the Colossus is now listed on WSOP+, and the top money earner according to Hendon Mob is the player to my immediate left with $288,551. That player is second in chips at my table with 346,000. No one said it was going to be easy. I am in 2,116th place out of 2,327 players entering Day 2.

This feels different than my cash last year when I made it into the money with mere scraps and did not bag chips. Getting knocked out seemed imminent and inevitable with the crumbs I had left last year. This feels different because while I am short on chips, I still have enough to be able to cause damage if I get some cards early. I am one double up from having room to play poker as opposed to being in shove mode. Yes, I am more likely than not to bust early, but the possibility exists that I can spin it up.

Up until now it has been all fun and games. This is something to take seriously. I’m not going to claim this is comparable to when I used to cover Super Bowls as a sportswriter. But this does feel like covering an out-of-town Monday Night Football game as a national writer. It feels important. I have previously written in this thread that a big part of what I want to feel is what it is like to compete in the Arena. But there is starting a Day 1, which is being in the arena. And then there is Day 2, which is more like being in THE ARENA. This is what I hoped to experience when I started on this longshot of a journey.

WSOP Colossus, Day 2 (June 8, 2022) (Part 1 of 10)
Feeling lots of different emotions … I’m unbagging chips!!!! … I’m tied with Jamie Gold … I face a familiar foe

Out of the original 16,301 entries, there 2,326 left. I’ve outlasted a ton of people, but the field is still immense.

Poker news lists every player remaining in order of chips. I see that I am tied with former Main Event champion Jamie Gold. This amuses me.

I get in a cab, and I am on my way to the Paris Hotel. I don’t recognize what I am feeling. Nervousness? Excitement? Anxiety? Anticipation?

None of them? Maybe all of them. I suspect it is a real witch’s brew of emotions. The cab arrives at the Paris. I pay. I get out. The next thing I know, I am at the Horseshoe Ballroom. After this many days at the WSOP, it is a walk I complete on autopilot with my eyes down and my brain deep in thought. I grab a seat on the floor in the hallway with all of the barbarian horde waiting for the doors to open.

I take a few calming breaths. I remind myself that on some level, nothing has changed. I’m still playing two cards at a time. One table at a time. I only need to make one good decision at a time.

Let’s do this!

I walk to my table, and my bag of chips is waiting for me.

I sit down at my table, and I see that Class Act from yesterday’s Venetian tournament is at my table, two spots away from me. As we talk at the table now and during play when neither of us is in a hand, I come to realize that she is a really nice person with a great poker demeanor, and she’s got game on the felt. Throughout the time we spend at the same table today when we aren’t in hands, we talk about various things that took place at our table at the Venetian yesterday. I mention the player who spoke rudely to another player yesterday and then got beat by a river card to knock him out in that same hand. She caught that as well. Class Act describes the rude guy as, well, a regular who is a not-so-nice word. She clearly respects the game and does not approve of players who do not.

Just before cards go in the air, it is announced that the button will be seat 9. Sweet. I am in seat 8. This will give me some time before I have to post blinds that will take a big bite out of my miniscule chip stack. Either winning the blinds or, even better, doubling up will really be helpful/necessary sometime in the hands before I have to post blinds.

WSOP Colossus, Day 2 (June 8, 2022) (Part 3 of 10)
Why checking Hendon Mob doesn’t tell you everything … pay jump … A-K vs 7-7

Level 19
8,000/16,000/16,000

After I lose my blinds again, I am down to 150,000 chips.

I am dealt A-K in middle position. I go all-in, and everyone folds. Back up to 190,000 chips.

The player to my left who I thought I had to be careful of since this player (according to Hendon Mob) has a quarter million dollars of poker earnings and a big stack has been completely inactive and silent at the table. Completely unnoticeable. Anyway, this player finally decides to play a hand and calls a pretty sizable all-in bet with K-J off suit and loses to A-K. My neighbor is down to 150,000 chips and no longer appears worrisome to me.

Pay jump (for something like $70, a pittance, which is the case with additional pay jumps that follow).

I pay off the blinds and am down to 150,000. Class Act is very short and goes all-in with 7-7. I quickly go all-in myself. Class Act says she doesn’t think she is going to like what she sees. I turn over A-K. It’s another coin flip. I again lose the coin flip. I am now considerably worse off than when I started the day, and the blinds are about to go up. Class Act and I sure do seem to get involved in a lot of hands against one another.

End of Level 19: 55,800 chips.

Indians guy not Willie Mays Hayes, I guess.

WSOP Colossus, Day 2 (June 8, 2022) (Part 4 of 10)
I’m on fumes and have to get it in light … “Sometimes nothing can be a real cool hand” … 9-10 off and I choose to be patient … the magic of A-4 one more time … pay jump … table change

Level 20
10,000/20,000/20,000

I pick a bad time to get the 2-7, 3-9, 4-8 dregs of the deck at this time. I am UTG and if I don’t get my chips into the middle with this hand, the next-to-follow big blind will consume almost my entire stack. I look down at Q-7 suited. I go all-in since Q-7 suited is better than the random hand that I suspect I will otherwise have to play in the big blind a hand from now. Q-7. It has paint. It’s suited. I guess it’s ride or die with Q-7 suited.

And while a long shot, it does have a tiny bit of fold equity. Doesn’t it? Nah, there can’t possibly be any fold equity. Everyone folds. I’m shocked. I have 103,000 chips. I am exactly back to what I started the day with. That’s a lot of swings to end up back exactly where I started. Q-7 suited, who’d have thought that would get everyone to fold? It’s like the poker scene in the movie Cool Hand Luke, where Luke (played by Paul Newman) bluffs successfully with absolutely nothing and says, “Sometimes nothing can be a real cool hand.”

However, I’m in the big blind the next hand. I have 3-6 off suit. I fold. It’s a good thing I got it in with Q-7 suited the hand before or else I would have had to play this 3-6. I’m down to 63,000 chips.

Next hand I am in the small blind. A player with a funky mustache opens pretty big. It folds to me. I have 9-10 off suit. If it had folded to me then I think 9-10 would be an acceptable shove on my part. But I see no reason to call off the rest of my chips with this hand. I now have an entire orbit before I am in the blinds again. I think I can get a better hand than 9-10 off suit in an orbit. I choose to patiently wait. And pray for something decent.

I am dealt A-4. This is the same hand I went all-in earlier against Class Act’s 8-8, and I flopped an A to save my tournament. Once again, I am short on chips. Really, really, really short on chips. Once again, I get dealt A-4. I go all-in. A big stack goes all-in. A medium stack that has me covered calls the all-in. Uhhh, this doesn’t seem promising. I am up against K-K and J-J. There is a sliver of hope. My A is still live. I have a chance to triple up. I am thinking “ace, ace, ace.” I do not flop an A. What I flop is …

… 4-4-9. I flopped trip 4s. It holds up. I just tripled up. The table is rocked by this variance tsunami!!!!! Class Act, who was not in the hand, says to me, “A-4 is your new favorite hand.”

Damn right it is. Yes, I have now added to my poker education the fact that A-4 is officially the nuts, replacing A-A as the top spot in pre-flop situations. Funny how my poker training site never taught me this.

I make a mental note that for me A-4 unleashes the power and fury of the Death Star.

I have 189,000 chips.

Pay jump for another pittance.

I have to pay the blinds, and then at that moment our table breaks. We have to wait a couple of minutes for the WSOP+ app to give us new table assignments. Class Act and I wish each other luck the rest of the tournament. Eventually, everyone else at the table gets their new table assignment. Everyone but me. The app on my phone still shows me at the table that just broke. I go over to a floor person, he taps some buttons on his laptop, and finally I get my new table assignment.

Really enjoying the story - excellent writing. One question - you seem to have gone back in time for the last four posts - they are dated as June 8 2022 😀

Good catch. I am moving too fast in posting. The building that I have been mentioning that is close to being sold, just concluded the sale yesterday. Plus, another building I am selling is close to going under contract. Yay me, but the impact on my posting is all gas, no breaks to use a phrase I have used in a poker context in this thread. The proper year for the recent posts is 2025, not 2022. Unfortunately, the editing window on 2+2 has closed, so I can't fix it.

So, no time machine. It wasn't Back to the Future.

WSOP Colossus, Day 2 (June 8, 2025) (Part 5 of 10)
My new table has mountains and mountains of chips … after posting the blinds I then immediately have to post them again … A-3 is A-4’s first cousin, which means … A nice time to get K-K

I get to my new table in the Horseshoe Ballroom, and I immediately notice two areas of concern.

First, the players at this table have mountains of chips. Two players have over 1,000,000 chips, and another player is getting near that mark.

Second, after I just posted both blinds during the last two hands at my old table, I will be in the big blind for my first hand at my new table. Posting the blinds immediately after just posting the blinds at my prior table when I am short on chips is a gut punch.

When I am in the big blind, UTG goes all-in with 10-10. I have 4-6 suited, and I fold.

Next hand, I have 104,000 chips and I’m in the small blind. UTG+2 bets. I have A-3 suited, and I go all-in. I figure, hey, A-4 has been the nuts so that must mean A-3 is a close relative. Let’s do this! UTG+2 is priced in and calls. Somebody says, “New Guy is putting an end to this.” I guess this means that UTG+2 has been pushing around the table before my arrival. UTG+2 shows 9-J. I’m ahead. Until I’m not. I flop poorly (and by poorly I mean end-of-the-world horrifying):

9-J-3

I got a piece of it, bottom pair. UTG+2 got a better piece of it, top two pair.

The turn is magnificent:

A

I have two pair. My two pair is better than villain’s two pair. The river is a blank, and I win a much-needed pot. I got lucky on the turn, but when I got it in I was ahead, so I don’t feel bad. I now have 259,000 chips.

I’m not fooling around. No reason to wait for an Ace on the River when an Ace on the Turn gets the job done just fine.

Ace on the River (the well-known poker book) …

Ace on the Turn (the not so known racehorse) …

Ace on the Turn doesn’t have the same sweet sound, but it is just as effective for me this day. And today, an Ace on the Turn keeps me alive in the Colossus.

I’m flush. I’m short. I’m up. I’m down. I’m up yet again. This has been an extremely swingy day so far. It is absolutely thrilling. I’ve never experienced this much of a roller-coaster ride in a poker tournament.

Shortly thereafter, I am dealt K-K. I have too many chips to go all-in. I open for 50,000. Everyone folds. Too bad, it would have been nice if someone would have tried to push me around and blasted off a bunch of chips. On the other hand, I don’t have to worry about what to do if someone called and an A were to come on the flop.

End of Level 20: 308,000 chips

WSOP Colossus, Day 2 (June 8, 2025) (Part 6 of 10)
We go on break and even then I continue to win chips … 1,205 players remain out of the original 16,301 … Poker royalty passes me by … I recall how Table Captain just lit a huge stack on fire

We go on a 30-minute break. I win the color up chip race when I am dealt A-J-3. So, correction …

End of Level 20: 310,000 chips.

The average tournament stack is 676,390.

There are 1,205 players left out of the original 16,301 entries.

I go out into the hallway and grab a seat on the ground with my back up against a wall. I pull my lunch out of my backpack. A bologna and cheese sandwich I made this morning and a Dr Pepper.

The Foxens walk by.

Greg Raymer walks by.

I eat and consider where I’m at in the tournament. I am far from flush in chips in relation to the blinds, but I’m still alive. And it’s not like I’m on fumes. The other thing is I have no reads on my new table since I have only been there a very short amount of time. In real time, I’m not bothering to write down player nicknames for the trip report any more because every decision I make right now is life and death from a tournament perspective. One mistake and I’m gone. I need to focus on the cards and try to assess the players as fast as possible.

WSOP+ says there are two players at my table with 1,200,000 chips and another with 875,000. I don’t think this is correct because there was recently a hand played for insane amounts of chips. A woman with what I estimated to be 1,000,000+ chips went to war against a guy who seemed to fancy himself the table captain. After the fact, I am giving them nicknames. Table Captain opened and Lady Million raised. Table Captain called. The board ran out J-10-5-2-3. No flush possible. Lady Million kept betting, Table Captain kept calling or raising and at showdown Table Captain was all-in. I was surprised when Table Captain showed only K-10 for second pair good kicker. Lady Million showed A-A. Table Captain got up from his chair in disgust and was out of the tournament. He seemed genuinely shocked that his hand was beat. Once Table Captain had left, a younger player at the table started commenting on how bad Table Captain had played the hand and concluded, “He really donked off his chips.” No one at the table had any interest in engaging in this subject. In any event, based upon that hand I strongly suspect Lady Million has somewhere around 2,000,000 chips, not the 1,200,000 chips listed on the WSOP+ app.

Before the end of break I write down the following in my notes: “I’m not going to pretend I am nonchalant about what is happening. This is really, really exciting.”

Then I head back to my table and pretend to be nonchalant about what is happening.

This is exciting, and your writing makes that come through! Thank you for taking us along!

WSOP Colossus, Day 2 (June 8, 2025) (Part 7 of 10)
The blinds are immediately merciless … pay jump … less than 1,000 players remaining … K-Q and I’m all-in

Level 21
10,000/25,000/25,000

I have 310,000 chips. I am in the big blind. Someone opens the action. I have 6-8 off suit and fold. There goes 50,000 chips.

Next hand, I am in the small blind. Someone bets. I have rags, and I fold. There goes another 10,000 chips.

Pay jump for a pittance.

I get no cards and stay patient. I feed the blinds again. We’ve played 11 hands, I haven’t been dealt anything remotely playable and as a result my stack has gone from 310,000 to 190,000. The blinds are relentless, and I have been scraping, clawing, fighting to stay ahead of them all day.

I see that I have made it inside the top 1,000. When we were down to about 1,200 people I had thought to myself that it would be cool to finish inside the top 1,000 in a tournament that has had over 16,000 entries. I’m sure that sounds silly. And I didn’t play my cards any differently because of this goal. But to me, saying I made the top 1,000 is kind of cool.

I am UTG+2 and get dealt K-Q. I go all-in. It’s not a hand you play huge early in a tournament, but when the blinds are nipping at your heals like hungry alligators, this is a hand I feel I have to push and hope to steal the blinds. Heck, I would gladly get called and have it be a coin flip. I need chips. A player with a much bigger stack than me goes all-in. Everyone else folds. I am hoping he has J-J or 10-10 for a coin flip. I fear he has A-K …

WSOP Colossus, Day 2 (June 8, 2025) (Part 8 of 10)
Not what I wanted to see … “Payout” … what do you mean I don’t get a place card? … I seem to be a Jamie Gold magnet … the impact on my Hendon Mob page

… I have K-Q and I fear my opponent has A-K, and I hope he has J-J or 10-10 for a coin flip. He does not have A-K, J-J or 10-10. He has K-K. I am practically drawing stone dead. I’m not even 80/20. In the recesses of my brain I suspect I am more like 90/10. I have run into a wall of kings.

I need queens. Lots and lots of Queens.

Not this …

I need this …

I watch the flop get turned over. Alas, You Can’t Always Get What You Want.

The flop is all low cards. Absolutely no help. My equity is now 0.3%. A lousy one-third of 1%. Still, that’s better than 0.00%. Not much better, but I’m not drawing completely dead.

So you’re telling me there’s a chance.

There is no runner-runner miracle. The dream is dead. I hear taps playing in my head.

The dealer calls out, “Payout.”

I stand up and have to wait for a bit, but eventually a floor person comes over, types something into his laptop, and my tournament death certificate has been signed. I say to the floor, “Now what do I do?” He says I should go to the Paris Champagne Ballroom, although it is not necessary for me to do so this second. I say, “Don’t I get a card with what place I finished?” He says no, which makes me sad.

It’s not like I have anything else to do, so I make the trek from the Horseshoe to the Paris Champagne Ballroom for my payout, passing by Allen Kessler who is walking in the other direction. While disappointed to be out of the tournament, I nonetheless have a smile on my face. My knockout is a fresh wound, but in the moment I am able to appreciate what I have accomplished. I keep walking and … what’s that smell? I believe it’s the smell of money. The sweet, sweet smell of money.

I get to the Champagne Ballroom and the greeter there says the line has just gotten long. I don’t mind. There are lines that suck to be in, and on occasion there are lines where you are happy to stand. For me, this line does not suck to be in. I am in the line of accomplishment.

While in the payout line, I see Jamie Gold (who I was tied with in chips to start Day 2) enter the room and engage in conversation with the greeter. After a minute Gold leaves the room, I’m guessing because the former Main Event champ didn’t want to endure a longish line that for him is the line of min cash disappointment. There are a lot of different lenses through which people view the world. Right now, my lenses are those that fit into rose-colored glasses.

Finally, it is my turn to be helped. The woman who helps me is a bubbly personality. I give her my Caesars player’s card and my driver’s license. She enters the information. I figure I’ll take one more shot, and I ask her if I get a card showing what place I finished like I did last year when I cashed. She says no, they don’t do that anymore. WSOP+ has made the little place cards obsolete. The unintended consequences of progress. She says she wishes they still did the little cards because she always enjoyed it when pros would bring all of, what she calls “their little what-place-they-finished cards.” She adds, “It was like a badge of courage.”

I really wanted one so I could put it with my finish card from last year that I have on my desk at work. The woman says I should keep last year’s little card because it will become a historical keepsake now that these are no longer given out. The woman then asks how I want to be paid. I ask if I can have a check. A supervisor behind her has been listening and says they only do checks for $10,000 or more. I say that they should just go ahead and put my payout in my WSOP+ account.

This results in me being sent into a new line that ends with a bunch of cages where they process tournament cashes.

I finish up and walk out. I am thrilled to have made the money and actually get to battle for four more levels on Day 2. Despite an 8 bb stack to start the day, I got to play for a long time on Day 2, which was exhilarating in a hyper-focused, living-on-the-edge-of-a-knife feeling throughout. I truly felt like I got to experience the feeling of being in the arena of something important that I love.

That’s two summers in a row that I have earned passage into the payout room. This has exceeded my wildest expectations.

This will be only my third cash on my Hendon Mob page. Ever. And yet, two of them are WSOP events. Think about that for a moment. It defies logic. And speaking of my Hendon Mob page, once the Colossus results are posted, it says that my latest WSOP cash has earned me 36.13 GPI points. I have to look up what GPI is, and I learn it stands for Global Poker Index. If I were to venture a guess, I would say I am probably ranked something like 641,786th in the world. You know what I take this to mean?

It means, I AM RANKED BY THE GLOBAL POKER INDEX. I’m an internationally ranked poker player!!!!!!!!!! I can’t figure out what I am actually ranked by Global Poker Index, so I poke around my Hendon Mob page and it says I am 372,905th on the all-time money list. I wonder if I can get a foam finger made that says,” I’m #372,905”. Hendon Mob also says that I am 165,961st on the United States all-time money list. Correction on the foam finger. Make it say, “I’m #165,961”.

In all seriousness, while I know I am no killer at the poker table the one thing I can say with certainty is there are not a lot of people having more fun at WSOP 2025 than I am. My expectations are low, and I have exceeded them massively. I am having the time of my life.

Well done! It's so refreshing to hear how happy you are and that you are having so much fun!!!

WSOP Colossus, Day 2 (June 8, 2025) (Part 9 of 10)
Thoughts once the excitement wears off … pay nudges, not pay jumps … how do the bulk of professionals make money?

Thoughts in the aftermath:

There is something I find odd. When the day started, there were 2,326 players remaining, all of whom were in the money. If I had been the first player eliminated today, I would have been paid $1,010.

Instead, I made it all the way inside the top 1,000 players, and I got paid $1,230. That is a lot of players I finished ahead of today for very little additional money. Don’t get me wrong, the money is not my motivation. Of course I’ll take the money, but the accomplishment means way more to me than the money. That’s just me. Nonetheless, outlasting almost 60% of the Day 2 poker players seems like it should result in a pay jump of more than was the case.

Pay jump seems to be the wrong phrase. It’s like more of a pay nudge for most of the field that makes the money until you get to the very top.

I truly don’t know how professional poker players can be profitable with pay structures this flat. Making the top 15% is really difficult. And yet it pays like nothing. But it gets worse. I basically finished in the top 6% (rounding down a smidge). From a what-place-I-finished perspective this is more than a min finish. But it is still a min cash.

And wait, it gets worse. I actually lost money on this tournament. I fired three bullets at $500 each. So, I spent $1,500 in buy-ins, and I cashed for $1,230. Never mind my expenses. Let me repeat this point. I finished in the top 6% of a massive tournament and lost money. And it’s not like I fired eight bullets over the four Day 1s. I only fired three bullets.

For me the economics are fine. I won’t go home and talk about how much I won or lost. When I go home, I will talk about how I cashed a WSOP event by making the top 1,000 players of a tourney with more than 16,000 entrants. I will talk about how I cashed at the WSOP two straight years. I will look with pride at my Hendon Mob page and see two WSOP cashes.

Except for the truly, truly elite poker players who can make numerous WSOP final tables or deep runs, I don’t see how anyone else makes the financial numbers work as a professional tournament poker player. It just seems way too difficult to make enough deep runs to be financially viable for anyone other than maybe the top 2% of poker players.

Enjoying this. I'm glad you got the "more" you were looking for when you began this year's journey.

I don't think I've ever been more nervous at a poker table than I was in 2021 returning for day 2 after cashing my first bracelet event. There were still hundreds of people left in the event, but if I squinted, I could almost see the final table. Knowing that anything was possible made it an incredibly exciting moment.

There was a very snobby Belgian pro at my table that day who said something along the lines of, "Tournaments are boring until you get to day 3". I'm not sure if it was calculated, but the comment served as both a condescending brag and a jab at the more recreational players who might have been experiencing day 2 play for the first time. This guy was already looking ahead to day 3 while I was on the edge of my seat with every hand (unfortunately he DID make day 3 and actually finished 4th).

I found the comment obnoxious, but what it underscores is the sliding scale of expectations for WSOP visitors. Simple math says not everyone who comes out to the WSOP each summer can walk away with a bracelet, a final table, a net profit, or even a single cash. With that in mind, it's good to ask ourselves what constitutes success. Is success playing well and making good decisions? Is it winning money? Is it testing ourselves against tough competition? Is it simply having fun? Is it some combination of all that?

The answer will vary depending on who you ask, but I think it's useful to enter the journey with a concrete sense of what we hope to get out of it.

In this case, you knew what you wanted, and you got it. That qualifies as success.

Maybe next year you will revise your targets and make different goals, but for now you can take a victory lap and be proud of the incremental progress.

This is exactly the point I was trying to convey. This is precisely what I experienced.

And it's interesting that DogFace just commented on this thread, because he is about to make an appearance in the actual trip report ...