A World Series of Poker How-To Guide

The World Series of Poker (the WSOP) is a breed of human interaction unmatched by and apart from all others. It’s a cross between an Iron Man competition, a bingo marathon, and a series of festivities you would expect to find at a Disney World for adults. This 6-week long, 55-event all-encompassing poker extravaganza offers unparalleled opportunity to the professional, hope to the amateur-dreamer, and sights-never-before-seen to the interested bystander.

Where else will you see grown men dressed as Superman, hear the constant riffling of chips and shuffling of cards, and spend every day so close to millions and millions of dollars of prize money that always seem enticingly within reach that you can taste it? Despite an at-times comical veneer, the WSOP is not to be taken lightly. Rather, the most successful players are those who are able to endure the marathon while maintaining an intense focus on the goal: WINNING.

To begin with, you can’t win unless you survive. And you can’t survive day in and day out if you are exhausted, distracted, or on tilt. Ultimately, I look at the WSOP as one long epic tournament for which I must come in every day at maximum capacity and recharge every night for the battle ahead regardless of what happened in the day(s) that are behind me.

The following list summarizes some of things that I believe to be instrumental in maximizing a player’s opportunity for success at the WSOP:

Sure, everyone wants to play every event, but unless your name is Doyle, Chip, or TJ, you’re unlikely to be a world-class player in every variation for which there is a WSOP event. Be honest with yourself about your strong suits and focus on playing tournaments tailored to your skills. Moreover, limiting the number of tournaments you play in means you’re more likely to be well rested and alert in the events you do decide to play. For example: If you’ve never played a hand of Razz live, you’ll be at a severe disadvantage relative to your opponents if you decide to enter a HORSE tournament. This may seem obvious, but if last year’s fields were any indication, then there are hundreds of players for whom this piece of advice would be helpful!

Not just within each tournament, but becauseof each tournament. You wouldn’t play each phase of a tournament the same way, so then why would you play each admittedly different WSOP event uniformly?

Human beings are creatures of habit. Familiarity breeds comfort, which frees the mind to focus on the task at hand. Comfort also minimizes the opportunities for distraction. I try to plan each day the evening before to ensure that the following day will more likely run smoothly.

This is a really important part of success at the WSOP. There will invariably be a time when you will notice that almost everyone around you has a bad-beat story or some other justification for self-pity. This mentality is contagious and selffulfilling. Attempting to avoid this mentality trap can be very challenging to say the least. I find music to be very powerful here. I like to have playlists set up on my iPod that I know will have a positive effect on my mood should I encounter a stressful situation.

Avoid the registration rush between 10am and noon every day and register the night before or at other odd times; or, if you can afford to do so, register in advance for all events you intend to play and avoid re-registration altogether. Also, be on time! Besides the fact that there are a lot of bad players (whose chips are up for grabs) at the tables in the early phases of tournaments, you will feel a lot better if you are early or on time than if you are rushing in at the last minute with everyone’s eyes on you. Also, I wear a watch because the clocks can be hard to see depending on where you’re seated in the poker room, and I like to know when breaks are coming up and how the levels are progressing.

Diet: The importance of Blood Sugar Stability cannot be emphasized enough. I learned this one the hard way. I went into dinner break of an event last year as chip leader and proceeded to eat a big carb-heavy meal. Boy oh boy, what a mistake that was ? I practically fell asleep at the table after the break and quickly made enough mistakes to squander my chip-stack. To avoid the carbcrash, eat small healthy meals every 3-4 hours and avoid heavy starches and simple sugars.

Exercise: The WSOP is like a marathon in all aspects except for one: the physical (or non-physical, that is) part. Sitting at a table for hours on end again and again is a good way to get really out of shape very fast. I like to exercise consistently throughout the month and I find that this also helps me stay mentally sharp and energized.

Sleep: These tournaments can run long and late. If you find yourself tired just from getting this far into my article, you are in for a surprise should you get deep into a tournament. Alertness can be an enormous edge for a player who is well prepared, as the players around him will grow tired and weary as the night goes on. These opponents will make mistakes that can be capitalized upon by players who are aware and alert. Some players drink coffee, others drink tea or energy drinks. Only you know your own body and personal taste, but I recently discovered Monster Energy drink (tastes a lot better than coffee to me) which I prefer to give me a boost when I need it.

Prepare for poker variations with which you are inexperienced. No one wants to look like a dunce. Even worse is a broke dunce. And these events are not free.

It’s essential that you strive for emotional balance and internal harmony. However, if you do get rattled, do not let your opponents pick up on that.

Get my drift? Don’t let others get a read on your emotions; this information is valuable and can be used against you by some players who excel in the psychological warfare aspect of poker. Take the preceding cutout and stick it on your refrigerator… there will almost certainly come a time when you will really need this as a reminder to take active control of your emotions.

For me, the WSOP can sometimes feel like the following endless loop:

1.) Seven hours of restless sleep, replaying hands over and over again in my mind. I am haunted by mistakes, bad beats, and bubbles, alternated by more friendly reminders of my successful moves, intricate plays, and big laydowns.

2.) This is usually followed by fourteen hours or so of poker play, which can feel like watching ants build a hill, punctuated by quickly alternating bursts of adrenaline and heart-attack-worthy pulse rates. This can be confusing for your body, as it cycles between resting heart rate and terror ? a cycle that can shock your senses into autopilot.

3.) Three hours of “downtime” during which I am mostly scrambling to get all the poker out of my head so that I can get to step four.

4.) Stop. Rewind. Play. Repeat steps 1-3.

Sometimes this repetitiveness can wear on you resulting in a sense of walking zombie- like indifference. You will know when you or others have hit this “wall of indifference.” You get that glassy-eyed, shellshocked, deer-in-the-headlights look. You don’t laugh at jokes anymore. Nothing seems to penetrate. At this point, you need to be honest with yourself: You need a break. It is okay to take a break - yes, even during the WSOP. Go to a movie, see a show on the strip, or hit one of the nightclubs on a weekend. It would be a real sin to spend a month in Sin City without at least enjoying yourself a little.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Keep performance in perspective; the WSOP is a long haul, but it’s still a short run (during which even the best players can and have encountered a bad streak). On the flip side, the WSOP still offers the opportunity for life-changing results. So treat it as such! Sure, you could get lucky. But, why not stack the deck in your favor?