Revisionist's second WSOP trip (June 4-10)

Hah, that might be more +EV at this point. I had a glass of wine with dinner last night, which counts as heavy drinking for me at this stage in life.

Yeah, he sits at the table and you get the feeling that he's a pro pretty quickly.

Starting the last day of the trip at the Orleans for their $300 Monster Stack. I’ve been playing huge fields the past few days, something with a better chance of final tabling sounded nice for today. If I bust I’ll probably go back to Horseshoe for the $400 Daily Deepstack.

Chip leader at my table at the first break with 78.7k from 30k starting.

Still the table chip leader at the second break, up to 104.5k

Gogogogo!

Gogogogo!!!!!!

LFG!

Might not want to mention it in BigWhale's thread, though 😀

Sick stack. If I knew you were playing I would have said hello.

On break on the stone bubble with 28 left. We’ve lost some ground to 212k, but we’re still just a hair over the 208k average.

Need top 2 to get unstuck for the trip, but let’s aim for taking the whole thing down.

Play good, run even better!!

Any cash is a worthy accomplishment, to be proud of.

Out in 13th for $920. With 16 left I had 385k at 6k/12k, which was just a little over average. Then I got out-kicked with trips in a big pot, and then I doubled up a shorter stack with 88 < T9s to leave me pretty short. Eventually I jammed 12bb with A8o from CO, BTN called with JJ and held.

Good to get on the scoreboard once for the trip, but not the result I was looking for tonight or overall.

Back home to Brooklyn tomorrow.

Great run!!

Congrats. These are the bittersweet runs, but so much better than not cashing. Always nice to end a trip on a positive note.

And with that, my second WSOP trip has come to a close. We’re at the airport lounge bright and early to have time for a leisurely breakfast and to catch up on a little work before our 7 am flight.

I plan to write up a closing recap while I’m on the flight home, but thanks for following along.

Great run! Congrats! Let’s keep this energy going!!

Congratulations on the cash. Safe travels back east. Thank you for the excellent TR.

GG

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Just read the whole thread by the pool. So many TR's this time of year. Thanks for sharing. Congrats on the cash at Orleans although I'm sure you're probably disappointed with the Monster Stack after making day two. Sums up perfectly how fickle tournaments are and the love/hate relationship we all have with them. Safe journey home.

The Final Report

While the results weren’t what we were looking for, that's how tournaments usually go, and I’m pretty happy with how I played. I’m not agonizing over any hands or beating myself up.

I’m very glad I got the nice run in the final tournament, even though it didn’t put much of a dent in my losses for the trip. 1/9 bullets is easier to swallow than 0/9. I can tell myself that I was one 70/30 hold (AQ vs AJ in the Monster Stack) away from likely being a solid 2/9. It’s obviously irrational to get too caught up on small sample sizes, but when I don’t get to make these trips often, it’s hard not to.

It's hard to sum up the whole trip and how I feel about my poker game at the current moment, but I just started writing thoughts on the plane ride home as they popped into my head, and I spent a little time tonight trying to loosely organize them.

Off The Table

Trip Reports: I’m happy I decided to write this trip report. I’ve enjoyed reading other people’s reports over the past couple years and wanted to contribute back to the community, so hopefully people enjoyed it. I’m sure it will be fun for me to read it in the future to relive the trip. I experimented with different styles — longer daily recaps vs. short live updates — and I’m not sure what I’ll do in the future. The longer daily posts are more interesting to write (and presumably to read) since I have time to actually provide some detail on hands. There’s more material for readers to engage with than just seeing chip stack updates. On the other hand, writing the long posts took up a good chunk of my free time on the days I wrote them, and people seem to enjoy sweating live runs, especially when people go really deep. I’m interested in hearing people’s opinions on this.

Free Time: It felt like I didn’t have a lot of free time on this trip, even though I was usually waking up several hours before my tournaments started. I spent several mornings catching up on work and/or writing the trip reports, so I often felt rushed. I had a full week of meetings before I left for Vegas, so I was already feeling behind before I left. Ideally I would have timed the trip differently so I wouldn’t have started off behind, but I wanted to schedule my trip around the Monster Stack, and this was the only way to do that. Hopefully in the future the timing works better.

Food/Activities: Other than two breakfasts (Hash House at Linq and Fulton Cafe at Harrah’s) and a dinner (Flavortown Sports Kitchen at Horseshoe during the Monster Stack break) with friends, and one solo dinner out (Buddy V’s at Venetian), my meals were just grabbing something quick at the food court at my hotel or the casino I was playing at. I didn’t see any shows. Living in NYC, I don’t really look forward to Vegas as a food or entertainment destination. It’s for grinding poker. But the Harrah’s dining options were very limited, which will certainly be a factor I consider in deciding where to stay on future trips.

On The Table

Chip Accumulation: I think the biggest objective evidence of progress in my game was how consistently I was able to accumulate chips. As I mentioned in my intro post, during my 2024 Vegas trip I only reached 2+ starting stacks on 2/9 bullets. This year, I reached 4+ starting stacks on 4/9 bullets (Monster Stack, Venetian $1100 turbo, Orleans $300, and my third $250 WSOP Deepstack bullet), and 2+ starting stacks on 6/9. The $1100 Venetian non-turbo was the only unique tournament where I didn’t reach 4+ stacks. There is obviously plenty of variance in whether you reach these arbitrary thresholds in any particular tournament. Still, I think it’s a less noisy way of analyzing performance over small sample sizes than cashes. 2024 Vegas felt like I could never get any traction. Almost every tournament in 2026 felt like I was just one flip away from a cash and a potential deep run.

Deep, But Not Deep Enough: With my 13th place finish at the Orleans, I’ve now made the final two tables in five live tournaments, and I still have yet to reach an FT. In this case, I don’t think I can read too much into it. I was in great shape with 16 left and then the cards just turned against me. I don’t think I could or should have done anything differently in any of the hands at the last two tables. But it’s still frustrating to come up short again.

Bluffing: One of my goals for the trip was to focus on finding good double barrels, even in no-equity spots. I don’t think I really did this. I was looking for spots but they never felt quite right. It felt like a huge portion of the flops I saw were multi-way, which makes it a little trickier.

I did try a couple no-equity bluffs with more complicated lines against one particular villain who I kept tangling with, but they felt awkward and didn’t make a lot of sense. Definitely fancy play syndrome. I should try to keep it simpler in the future.

I did find some success with bluff jamming the river against shorter-stacked villains:

• Orleans $300 (600/1.2k): I open QJss MP off around 94k, two IP + bb callers. (11.8) Red KTx x around. Bb bets 3.5k on X turn, I call, everyone else folds. (18.8k) He x T river, I jam ~20k effective, he thinks for a bit and folds.
  
  
• $250 Deepstack (500/1k). HJ opens, CO calls, I call in SB with KJo off ~50k. ATx checks around. I bet 4k on blank turn (maybe should have been smaller?) CO calls but doesn’t seem like the type who would check an Ace on the flop. Put him in on blank river, like 8k more into 16k pot. He folds.
  

Turn check-raise bluffs also worked well:

• Wynn $1100 turbo (300/500): I open AQss, older BTN calls, bb defends. 98x flop with one spade. X to BTN who quickly bets 2k, bb folds, I call. Jx turn. I x to BTN who SNAP bets 3k. Villain’s sizing and timing both seem very weak here, and we have a good combo to raise (two overs + gutshot). I raise to 8k, he folds.
  
  
• Monster Stack (400/800): CO opens, BTN calls, I call ATdd in SB, BB calls. On Qxxdd it checks to BTN who bets ~3k, I call, everyone else folds. Kx turn, I check, he bets 9k, I raise to 25k with the flush draw + gutter and he folds.
  

3-Betting: I’ve really ramped up my 3-betting lately. My frequencies are not what they should be in theory — I feel like I’m 3betting hands like Q8s, K4s, 100% of the time I’m playing them in positions other than in the BB, instead of mixing with calls. And I’m probably going a pip or two too wide in some spots in theory. But I’m not playing against computers. People are overfolding to the 3bets, under 4bet bluffing, and not continuing wide enough post-flop. I think people are making huge mistakes in these pots and I’ve been able to maneuver well and exploit them. Maybe I’m just getting lucky — hard to say. Something to monitor in the future.

Stickiness: Very happy with how sticky I played. Good things happen when you float IP with any reasonable amount of equity, especially when villain cbets too much and/or you can pressure their stack.

Leads: I know I’m not leading often enough, but I still found a couple good spots on the trip:

• Orleans $300, stone bubble: I have an average stack and defend bb with 98cc vs a short stack who has been playing very cautiously nearing the bubble. Flop is 754 with one club, I lead he folds.
  
  
• Monster Stack, first Level of Day 2: UTG8 big stack opens, I defend bb with 96hh off 70bb. T97ccs, I x/c his cbet. 7x turn I lead, he folds.
  

This seems like some low-hanging fruit I should work on.

Mindset: A recurring issue with my mental game has been that if I’ve been building up chips and then lose some, I get very caught up in not being at my high-water mark, and how many chips I could have had if one hand had gone differently. I don’t know how much it affects my play, but it’s not a good headspace to be in. I need to focus on the situation I’m in each hand and just making the best decision I can in that spot. I was very happy at how I did with this in my final tournament. When I dropped down in chips, I just dialed in, forgot everything else that had happened, peeled my cards, and made the best decisions I could for this brand new hand. I hope I can consistently reach that same mindset in future tournaments.

Up Next

I’m very confident that I’m winning significantly at $500 buy-ins and below. I’m pretty sure I’m winning at the $600-800 range, but not as confident and I’m not sure of the level of my edge. At the $1000-1700 level, I have no idea. I’ve gotten much more comfortable at that level and there are definitely plenty of people in the fields who I am better than. Are there enough of them, and is my edge against them big enough to make up for the rake and the people who are crushing me? I don’t know, but I plan to keep firing them for now when I get the chance.

This Summer:

• The Borgata Summer Poker Open is in July. I will probably just play the $600 Deep Stack Kickoff. The $2700 Main is too much for me at this point. I was considering playing the $2k WSOP event last week, but didn’t end up needing to make a decision since I made Day 2 of the Monster Stack. I think I need to start seeing some results and building confidence at the $1k-$1700 level before I’m ready to start playing $2k+ buy-ins.
  
  
• The WSOP Circuit returns to Atlantic City in August. The schedule for that isn’t out yet, and I’m not sure if I will go down for both weekends or just one. I’d like to play the $1700 Main again, and I’ll be eligible to play the 40/40/40 for the first time, which seems like it should be a good tournament. August is looking like a busy month, so we’ll have to wait and see.
  

Future Vegas Plans: I loved, loved, loved the Monster Stack. The slow and deep structure was incredible. I thought I would be really annoyed by getting deep in Day 2 and still not cashing, but it didn’t really feel that much worse than a normal bust out. I had such a fun time playing it and would highly recommend it to anyone.

I only fit one bracelet event in my schedule this time, and I’d like to fit in more in the future. The experience is really fun, despite the poor dealers and crowds on breaks. But at the same time, it’s just so unlikely to get a meaningful deep run in these massive fields. I like feeling like I have a realistic shot at an FT in the smaller non-WSOP runs. So this will probably be something I’ll continue to try to balance in the future.

I appreciate the recap, and LOVE the plan!

Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for bringing us along on your trip.

Great report. I enjoyed the writing and the analytical thought process. Anticipating good things from you in the future.

Provided that your skill level is reasonable for the stakes (which it seems to be), this is mostly just a function of volume.

I had the opportunity to play with AJ Cummings (2x 2-7 triple draw bracelet winner) in the Wynn 2-7 Triple Draw back in March and this is what struck me about him. I didn't have a nuanced enough understanding of the variant to critique his play at all, but he seemed to have a pretty rough session where things weren't going his way. Instead of giving up and punting off his stack, he rebuilt and made a respectable comeback that ultimately fell short. I also noticed this about Ivey's 2-7 win from 2024. He was very short at one point in the final three, but never tilted it off. These are hardly isolated examples. The best players have a competitive streak and will scrap and claw until they're dead. Mindset can't deal you AA on every hand, but I do think it's very important to always try to make the best decisions possible and never surrender, even if the session has been a nightmare.

Always something I wrestle with. The large field NLHE stuff is fun, but the numbers don't look great when you think about reaching the meaningful payouts. There might be nothing harder to win at the WSOP than a large field NLHE bracelet. It is likely even more difficult than winning any type of high roller, regardless of what people say about how difficult it is to play against the very best. I'll take my chances against Koon and Artur in a 100 person field over 12,000 opponents in the Monster Stack.

However, it's a double-edged sword. Those huge fields create some crazy payouts, and somebody has to eventually win.

I like playing a 100-500 person tournament where the final table isn't a complete pipe dream. However, my current attitude is to allow myself to dream a little bit during the WSOP season, as arguably that's what this time of year is about. I can play single day tournaments against 100 people at the Venetian or Wynn any time, so summer is when I indulge in the mega bink fantasy instead.

I typically fire 1, maybe 2 WSOP events MAX when I come, and honestly, I think your comments are spot on. A perfect example was on Wednesday, while I a lot of folks were trying to beat 20,000 entrants in the Col. at WSOP, there was an awesome $800 dollar tournament going on at Aria with about 300-400 players and 50K up top. 30 minute levels, and rebuys being over at a somewhat reasonable level (unlike the Venetian tournaments etc).....bottom line is I've always spread my time out across, Wynn, Aria, Golden Nugget, Orleans, (Resorts world when it was open RIP) and yes, WSOP, but it's never the focal point of my schedule.

Nice report, thanks for sharing!

Was a good read. Thanks for sharing.