A New Year of Poker
by Brian Heptinstall

Ok, tell me if you or someone you know goes through the following scenerio. You're an average Joe, sitting in front of the tube watching the final hand being played out at 2006 World Series of Poker main event. Jaime Gold takes the bracelet and the money, and the show concludes. You cut the T.V off and, leaning back in your lazy chair, you think out loud: "Well, there's always next year." Sound like anyone you know? But where do you start?

Since we've already seen the end of this year's granddaddy of them all, I figured the best thing to write about is something I know: scraping up for the cheese for the next World Series of Poker!

First of all, we should all realize two things:

1. Your bankroll is your bankroll! This will be the golden rule.
2. Budgeting should be your lifestyle, unless your last name is "Trump."

First, let's breakdown a solid budget. You know there are a few key things you'll need to do in order to get to Vegas: flight, hotel, and food. The best way to iron these out is to get on some reputable sites such as Expedia, Travelocity, or Hotwire, which will have an infusion of all hotels and flight possibilities you will encounter, giving you the proper measuring stick in which to hold a "loose' budget together.

Hotels are a whole different card game, so to speak. You need to know the geography and the transportation situation of the hotel you plan to stay in. I've found that Harrah's owns a number of properties around town from which you can take a bus to the Rio around the clock. A one-way cab ride runs around $20, and a rental compact rental car will run $30-$90. Harrah's has also been cutting a deal with any player that plans to play in the main events, renting rooms that average $175, roughly half price.

Food in the different casinos will vary from from $7 for a snack, up to $55 for the ritzy buffets in the high end properties. Figure out your length of stay, add your flight average, hotel accommodations, transportation, and food requirements, and PRESTO! Now we know the budget and we've been saving all this in a sock drawer somewhere away from the wife/husband, and the next part of our plan will kick in. You've got your "total trip." Excluding play, of course.

Harrah's released the dates for the various 2007 WSOP events sometime in January, and next year will likely do something similar. This will give us a chance to review the schedule, and plan ahead for the games we will most benefit from. I chose to go early in the schedule this year for two games I felt best suited me: the shootout, and the Pot Limit Omaha tournaments. This gave me a chance to build up my bankroll through satellites, and not feel like I had to enter a tournament in which I felt uncomfortable. For us fish, it's not necessarily the smartest idea to start at the $10,000 level, leaving us in the awkward position of having built up a bankroll only to put risk it all in a single game.

So we have our trip planned, we've done our research into the best time to go, and now it's time to hop on the plane, right! Wrong again, amigos! Just as we hone our own strategies, we also need to study up on the professional players and overall trends in their styles. For instance, after Moneymaker won it all there was an influx of the young gun online players and their incredibly aggressive styles. Spend some time just observing the action at the tables before you ever even take your seat. This can happen in your spare time, and will be one of the biggest allies to your game thus far. Web sites (such as Pokerpages.com) can offer a vast sea of helpful knowledge completely for free, and books are also an enlightening way to sharpen your skills.

Using these tips and remembering the two fundamental rules will help you to get the most out of your experience in Vegas, ultimately giving you the best possible stay and keeping you from sweating over every little detail.

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About the Author:
Brian Heptinstall began playing poker like most everyone else by learning in a Sunday night game in college. Since then, it's been quite a whirlwind for him as a player, and a person. Brian is a graduate of culinary school and once worked for Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago Resort in Palm Beach, Florida. He resides in Hoover and is an avid Crimson Tide Fan.