Vegas Poker Blog

Yesterday, the WSOP kicked off with the first bracelet being awarded to dealer Chris Gros in the employees tournament portion. So, were off and running!

Now comes a grueling few weeks so I started wondering how people really prepare themselves to stay the course �if their cards and chips hold out. After the practice and the satellite rounds, what do you do when you finally get to Vegas and are hopefully going to be there for the next six weeks?

Well, hopefully, you landed yourself a pretty decent place to call home during that time. Las Vegas is nothing but hotels so rooms arent at a shortage, but ones where you can be comfortable for weeks is another issue entirely. The primo condos and apartments were snapped up forever ago, and most serious players say its very necessary to be able to get away from The Strip to relax and unwind.

With heat upwards of 105 degrees on many days, many players want to avoid walking any distance at all. So, some prefer hotels, not much getting into their car and a leisurely swim in a pool during off hours. Some play a little golf and others have all sorts of methods of keeping their heads geared and focused. Everything from reading quietly œHarrington on Holdem� seems to be something popular) to the myriads of poker game action going on all over town (the Red Rock is home to a lot of professionals who are no doubt going to be downstairs playing a lot). Some players are walking around watching games trying to work out which players can be pushed around and which ones cant.

While still others are in their rooms connected to their laptops playing online games, and writing daily or weekly blog pieces for sites.

One of the big mistakes, it is said, that online players make when coming to Vegas for WSOP, is not getting out and playing on at least one real table a day �just to prepare and get the feel of it all.

Because WSOP goes on for such a length of time, there are days and hours still left to become prepared and I suspect there are about 6000 different methods being used right now. If I were there, trying to work out how Id be handling it all is sort of a fun fantasy to think about!