Gray-haired poker TRs: Living the WSOP dream

They have done that in the middle of the day even. Kinda funny to watch. The floors are in a mild panic the whole time because they're worried about something going wrong on the way there. It's almost like an elephant walk with a couple hundred poker players.

The momentum is real.

From the cell phone camera of rpphotographer
The Bellagio fountain show

I am still rpgimpy with my leg and heel still acting up, so the best I can do for 2+2 regarding the Bellagio fountain show is this view from across the street, just outside the doors of the Paris. Hey, I'm playing hurt for the benefit of LVL.

When Mrs. rppoker hears that I outlasted 65% of the field, she thinks it is a great accomplishment. I tell her it isn’t. She doesn’t want to hear it.

This is hugely EV+ and should be cultivated, not dismissed. Especially when you want to spend 3 weeks in 2025.

Amazing TR. Good luck in current trip. Thanks for your wriitng.

A minute later the bells are ringing again at his machine, which says he has won a $5,800 major jackpot. Man is this swingy. Just watching makes me sort of nervous. I walk away. Too rich for my blood – but it sure is fascinating to see someone else’s money at play on a high-wire act without a net.

This is why Leon loses 10k in an hour no problem. And wins 40k in a day sometimes.

Also you are on your way to joining him in HOF TR. He's still the goat of course and I'm sure you'd agree.

I agree! Leon is the GOAT, but you’re definitely closing in. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading your “run-up to/recap of” your last trip to the WSOP. I’ve played in the grand sum of one Senior WSOP event, and it was amazing. For me, it was a bucket list item to accomplish, and I’m glad I did it. You’ve definitely inspired me to give it another go. Thanks for all your dedication in the writing leading up to your journey. It’s been great. For obvious reasons, your storytelling is AMAZING! Keep it coming, I can’t wait to hear what’s been happening behind the pictures and I wish you all the run good you can handle. Good luck and please keep us updated!

I'm glad you guys think I'm the GOAT, and I'm down with someone else taking the mantle. Gives me more interesting stuff to read!

I actually contemplated playing a flight of the Wynn classic or whatever is going on this past weekend (more on that to come in my TR), but decided against it. It's weird bc as has been noted I have zero problem donating 5 figures playing a -EV game. But the old poker player in me that used to dominate but now knows I'm not a favorite (never learned NLHE like limit, always played cash and didn't study tournaments) is unwilling to fire a bullet LOL. I'd have to buy in to 1k or higher events to care. So I'm cool not being the favorite against the casino, but not cool with not being the favorite against other people, knowing I used to be favorite. So dumb.

Hope we see some binks here.

WSOP has LHE events, and other fixed limit games like O8 and other weird games like Badonkey.

From the cell phone camera of rpphotographer
Can't have a photo section without the Earl of Sandwich

From the cell phone camera of rpphotographer
What's with all of the dogs at the WSOP, in the casino, in the hotel? If my dog Astro finds out, he is going to want to be a WSOP dog in the future. These are only some of the pictures. Others I'm holding back for my trip report.

From the cell phone camera of rpphotographer
Norman Chad (from a couple of days ago, but I forgot to post them)

Breadcrumb: Seated to my immediate left in today's tournament ... Eric Baldwin.

Breadcrumb: A couple of days ago, I ran a successful bluff against two poker pros in one hand. At the time I didn't know who they were. Tonight I watched a Daniel Negreanu video and one of the guys I bluffed makes an appearance. I am 93.2% certain the guy (who was only at the table very briefly) that I successfully bluffed was ... Johnny World.

Unfortunately, none of those creatures in the photos a couple posts back were dogs. 😉

From the cell phone camera of rpphotographer
I have seen people on 2+2 ask about the Main Event champions photos and the Poker Hall of Fame photos in a display somewhere at the Horseshoe. These displays can be found when you walk into the Horseshoe casino poker room.

Breadcrumb: For the second time this WSOP, Ben Yu joins my table.

Great pic of Daniel Weinman, 2023 Main Event champ, and formerly known as notontilt09 right here on 2p2, back when we both grinded the small stakes/mid stakes games on Stars before Black Friday!

AND he and I are both from Atlanta. In internet terms, we go way back.

From the cell phone camera of rpphotographer
Odds and ends

I fly home tomorrow. The written word will return very soon. My rough drafts of each days events have been written. They just need to be cleaned up.

If you want content, you're going to get content. My 2019 WSOP recap was 18,000 words. The buildup to my 2024 WSOP was an additional 31,000 words.

The rough drafts of my 2024 WSOP that are still to be posted are in excess of 45,000 words. Give me a couple of days and the posts will begin.

Says here the average non-fiction book is 50k-80k words. Sounds like you could do a multi-timeline novel-style book, with maybe some family/career/COVID stuff mixed in.

Can’t wait to read about it!!

rppoker 2024 WSOP trip report

The writing is about to begin.

But first, a word from our sponsor ...

Trip report housekeeping

Throughout this upcoming portion of this trip report, I will provide play-by-play of key hands and pretty much all of the hands I played, although I don’t bog the TR down with breakdowns of hands where I simply folded my blinds with rags when faced with a bet. In most cases I don’t include the suits of the cards (i.e the flop is 9-7-2, rather than 9h-7d-2c). There are a few reasons for this. After the hand I may be scooping chips, trying to focus on the next hand and write down what just happened, writing down table talk, etc. In many cases, I just don’t remember the suits, which may not be important to the story telling. I am new to all of this and I’m not great at remembering the suits after the fact. If the suits were important to the hand such as a flush draw or a monotone board then I definitely include the information. The same thing holds true with the chip size of each round of betting. I’m just not good at remembering the sizing of each street of betting after the hand is over. I realize the chip sizing is important, but given the choice between writing down a good story that happened in the hand as opposed to capturing the exact bet size, my mind and note taking goes for the story over the bet sizing. I frequently do not include position. Again, I know it’s important and I factor it in to my poker decisions, but I don’t always remember to write it down in my notes.

I’m amazed at how well so many of you guys remember every tiny detail of a hand. One example stands out. There was a big hand I was involved in in which the other player really misplayed his hand badly (according to someone else at the table, not my analysis). In any event something like 30 minutes later, the guy who misplayed the hand had busted. Two other players were talking about the hand and one of them described to the other exactly what I had and the other player had (suits included), what position we were each in, what the flop turn and river were (including all of the suits) and what the betting action was on each street (including the exact bet) about a hand he was not involved in. And he had everything right according to my notes. Yes, it was a memorable hand, but I was still in awe about the detail he was able to remember and provide.

While I try as best I can to provide all of the above details, this trip report is more about painting the picture of what the WSOP is like for a recreational player and less about the intricate details of high-level hand histories. What I lack in poker chops, I’d like to think I make up for in my ability to find interesting stories.

For those of you who are into the tiny details, I hope your sensibilities will not be offended by the sometimes unstated details of the hands I write about.

My goal in this trip report is to create a body of work that conveys the sights, the sounds, the emotions, the stories, the experiences and the journey that is the WSOP. Call it the diary of a recreational player.

2024 WSOP: May 28
I’m all business ...The Paris/Horseshoe tag team seems more difficult to navigate than the Rio ... Making a decision at the registration cage with incomplete information ... Railing Daniel Negreanu, Erik Seidel and Dan Shak ... Earl of Sandwich meter: 1

My flight touches down. I could wax poetic about how Vegas looks from the sky. I could paint an electric word picture of all the neon on the strip. But that’s all been done a thousand times before. Too cliché. So, let’s get down to business.

Plane lands without crashing. Check.

My suitcase has not been sent to India, and instead shows up at baggage claim in one piece. Check. (In fact, when I got near the baggage carousel, I saw all of the plane’s bags were already there, and when I got to the carousel literally the first suitcase in front of me was mine).

Pick up rental car. Check.

Get to the Signature and check-in (no line). Check.

Go to the room and make sure everything looks fine: Check

Go shopping at a grocery store to fill my in-room refrigerator. I check raise, no, getting ahead of myself, I mean just a check. Just check the box. I go to a Vons, same place as I went in 2019. Almost none of the food I buy is Mrs. rppoker approved. Left to my own devices I am going to eat everything that is bad for me. My weight when I left Chicago was 187 pounds. The over/under on what I will weigh when I return home is 198.5.

Anyway, so far no unexpected surprises. No fuss. No muss. No negative travel variance. Boring is good.

WSOP 2024, time to get started. Time to head over to the Paris and Horseshoe hotels to get the WSOP lay of the land since the last time I played in the WSOP was in 2019 when it was at the Rio. I walk since it is not that far away (0.7 miles) and I don’t want to deal with parking my car. One thing I will miss about the Rio was its huge free parking lot in the back.

I walk to the Paris. It takes 18 minutes. I think this may be doable as long as I make the trek early in the morning for 10:00 a.m. tournament start times. When I landed and was trying to find the car rental shuttle it was a blazing 99 degrees.

During my walk to the Paris, a strange statistical anomaly from my 2019 WSOP trip pops into my head. Not once during my 12-day 2019 WSOP trip did I get dealt K-K. I got dealt a decent amount of A-A and Q-Q, so it’s not a complaint. I wonder how long it will take for me to get dealt my first K-K.

I walk into the Paris casino and look for someone to ask where to go for WSOP registration. I can’t find anyone. There seem to be no floating employees to ask questions to. I go to a gaming table that has no players at it and ask the dealer who points me in the right direction. It is a long walk.

I get to the WSOP registration area and decide to go to the Caesars Reward station to see if my 2019 card is still good. There is no line. No one in front of me. The woman helping me says my 2019 card is still good, but she says she can make a 2024 card for me if I like. I say sure, figuring it is a nice keepsake.

Then I go to the registration area expecting to find a massive line. There is no line outside the door like I expected. It takes only 25 minutes to get to the cage. There are a lot more people manning the cages than was the case when I played in the WSOP at the Rio. I have a question. While I have been in line, I ask the guy in front of me if he has been to the WSOP before. He says no. He only just turned 21. I ask the guy behind me the same question. He says he has been to a few WSOPs. That’s good enough for me, so I ask him my question, which is: if I sign up for a tournament that starts tomorrow and a second tourney that starts the next day, if I make Day 2 of the first tournament can I get a refund for the other tournament since I can’t be in two places at once. He says he thinks I can get a refund, but he isn’t positive. The guy standing behind him is very positive he knows the answer. He adamantly says I will not be able to get a refund in the scenario I have laid out. Hmmm, this could be a problem. My intention was to buy in to five tournaments right now. Not all of my tourneys but a large portion of them. But the no refund conundrum is making me hesitate.

When it is my turn at one of the cages, I pose my question to the woman staffer. Before I even finish the question, I can tell she does not know the answer. My sense is she is very new to this. The good news is she goes and finds her manager. I pose my question to the manager. She says that I absolutely can get a refund as long as I bring my ticket to the cage before the tournament begins for the tourney I want the refund for.

This works for me. Rather than pay the entry fees for five tournaments, I do so for only three. I sign up for tomorrow’s NLHE freezeout, the following day’s flight 1A of the Mystery Millions, and my last tournament, which has no possible conflicts with earlier tourneys. I figure that if the manager was incorrect with what she told me, I will only lose one entry fee.

Next task, it’s time to get the lay of the land. I go to the Paris ballroom where the $5,000 Champions Reunion as well as the Casino Employees tourney are taking place. I watch the Champions Reunion for a little bit and see Daniel Negreanu, Erik Seidel and Dan Shak in action from the rail.

I leave just as the casino employee tourney breaks for dinner and as I am in the hallway surrounded by these players, what I hear is: bad beat story, bad beat story, bad beat story, bad beat story, bad beat story, bad beat story. I decide to find something better for my time, so I find the nearest bathroom, which is obviously useful information for when I am on a break.

Next up, I need to find how to get to the Horseshoe WSOP tournament area. I walk to the Horseshoe casino, but I can’t find any signage. Once again, there are no floating employees to ask. I ask a bartender, but she doesn’t know. I ask a gaming table employee who has no one gambling at his table, but he doesn’t know. I see three guys in suits who are huddled talking about something so I go over to them and wait for them to see me. One of them looks my way and I ask him where to go, and he points me in the right direction. I head that way, fumble around for a bit and finally stumble across what I am looking for.

Next, I scout around for dinner options if I make it to a dinner break. This is relatively easy.

Now I want to find my way out of the hotel. This is not easy. I can’t find an exit. I ask a bartender and he gives me a long set of instructions, which I somehow follow and I get outside where I have to work my way through a maze of turns to get to the street.

By now I am pretty exhausted. I am normally a 5,000 steps a day person. Today I have walked 15,000 steps. My feet hurt. My heal hurts. My legs hurt. My lower back aches. My original plan was to go to dinner at a restaurant that serves Beef Wellington, but at this point I have no patience for a nice restaurant that will take its time bringing out my meal. I call an audible, and I go to Earl of Sandwich at Planet Hollywood. At least I want to. The problem is once I get inside there is no signage telling me where it is, and as has been the case everywhere, there are no floating employees in the casino area to ask directions. It takes a while but I finally find the Earl of Sandwich.

Hello my old friend. I scarf down my meal.

My original plan was I would now walk the strip. But I am way too tired for that, and I head back to my hotel and I collapse on my bed.

I’m not sure if I made the right choice selecting the Signature again as my hotel, figuring how hard can it be to walk seven tenths of a mile to the Paris? The Rio, for all of its flaws was way easier to navigate since you could park in the back for free, get out of the car, walk a short distance and be in the WSOP section of the property. The Rio tournament area seemed much easier to navigate than the Paris/Horseshoe tag team. Maybe next year I need to consider staying at the Paris. I still have an open mind, but my early reaction is my plan to walk every day to the Paris/Horseshoe may be a case of biting off more than I can chew.

Right now, I am feeling every one of my 62 years.

A little after midnight my right Achilles tendon cramps up on me. I ice it, which helps.

If the WSOP had an injury report like pro sports leagues do, I would be listed as probable for tomorrow’s Event #3.

Nice post. I enjoy your writing style. Paints the picture perfectly.

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