Poker Articles

Preparing for the WSOP
By Matthew Hilger
(All Rights Reserved)

It is that time of year again and the World Series of Poker is right around the corner. I will be spending the entire six weeks in Vegas this year and am excited that I will be able to play more events this year than in the past two years combined. Yes, I'll be working a little on my books, I still have to write my Cardplayer column, and I'll keep up with all of the projects going on at my website, but for the most part, the WSOP represents that one time of year where I can truly focus most of my energies on playing poker. My goal this year is simple - win a bracelet, improve on my three cashes from last year, and hopefully make the money in the main event for the 3rd year in a row.

This year's WSOP look to be even bigger than ever before. Most of the online poker sites plan to run even more satellites this year. With all of these satellites, there will be even more WSOP rookies than ever before. I get asked quite a lot, "How should I prepare?" Nothing can quite prepare you for your first WSOP but there are things you can do now that will give you a better chance of making a good showing.

Let's start out with the obvious - read some good poker books. The Harrington on Hold'em volumes are must reading for every serious tournament player. If you haven't read the first two volumes then be sure to get them and start looking now for the 3rd volume which should be released around the time that this article is published. My 2nd book, Texas Hold'em Odds and Probabilities, is also being released in early June and focuses on how to apply odds to make better decisions at the poker table. If you have been neglecting your poker reading, June and July is a good time to start getting caught up.

When talking about preparing for the WSOP, we have to look first at the biggest challenge online players face when making the adjustment from online play to live play. Besides the obvious in not giving off tells, most online players fail to adjust to the deep stacks leading to many major mistakes. You will start out with $10,000 in chips at the WSOP compared to $1500-$2500 which is typical for most online tournaments.

Top pair top kicker is not a monster hand in a deep stack tournament. Let's look at a typical scenario in an online tournament where you start with $1500 in chips. Let's say the blinds have increased to $25-$50. A player raises to $150 and you reraise to $400 with AK. Your opponent calls and the flop comes AT8 rainbow. Your opponent checks, you bet $500, and your opponent goes all-in. In this online tournament, you have an easy call. You only have $600 left in chips and you could easily be against AQ, AJ, or possibly a bluff.

Now let's compare this scenario to the WSOP and you both have $10,000 in chips. $25-$50 blinds is the first level. Again, the same scenario occurs, yet this time, your opponent check-raises the flop to $1500 rather than moving all-in. You suddenly have a very difficult decision. If you call, what are you going to do on the turn and river when you both have $8,000 in chips remaining? You have to be very concerned that your opponent is sitting on a hand like AT, TT, or 88. This is by no means an automatic call like it would be online.

In a deep stack event, top pair top kicker is a sucker hand. You should never lose a lot of chips with just a pair when the blinds are low compared to your stack sizes. In fact, in a deep stack tournament, there are situations where you might fold two pair, a set, a straight, or even a medium high flush. There are more bets and raises on each hand which gives you more information to decipher what your opponent is holding. Although uncommon, you might conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that your opponent is holding a higher set than you. This type of analysis rarely occurs in an online tournament.

Fortunately, there are some ways now to practice deep stack tournaments. Poker Stars now runs daily "deep stack" tournaments where you start with $5,000 in chips and the blinds start at $10-$20. The great thing is that the blinds only increase every 30 minutes and only reach $25-$50 after the first hour. I highly recommend trying to fit some of these tournaments into your practice schedule. Most of them have buy-ins of between $10-$30.

When playing these tournaments, try to identify the players you can push around and those you can't. Some players won't risk a lot of chips unless they have two pair or better. You can attack these players trying to pick up small pots. Some players will play as if they are in a $1500 chip tournament. You should try and trap these players with a monster hand and don't attempt to bluff them too much. This is exactly the same kind of strategy you should follow in the early levels of the WSOP main event.

These deep stack tournaments will help you become more comfortable with a stack and blind structure similar to where you will start at the WSOP. It is much better to make mistakes in a $10 tournament than in a $10,000 tournament!

Many online players have a lot of multi-table experience. Although the money is great in these tournaments, it is quite difficult to reach the final table given the huge fields that most tournaments have. If you are one of those players who plays a lot of these tournaments, you may actually have very little final table experience. Just as an example, if you are playing in tournaments with 500 players, you should only expect to make the final table about once every 50 attempts. Although I'm sure no one complains if they make the final table at the WSOP, if you get there, you want to be prepared to have a chance at making history. The final table is where most of the money is won but many players simply do not have the experience playing short-handed once they get there.

Again, online play is an excellent place to practice. Regular online players should play at least one sit-n-go tournament every day. Although the blinds move up quickly, they are great practice to help you get a feel with how a final table will work. You'll get a feel at playing short-handed and will develop an understanding on how to make adjustments as opponents are eliminated.

If you want to play a lot of multi-table tournaments, play some of the smaller events in terms of entrants. The idea is to gain practice trying to make the final table and then actually playing at a final table. You'll gain a lot more of this type of experience playing in tournaments with 100-300 entrants than you would with the 1000+ entrant tournaments. Poker Stars also runs 180 person sit-n-go tournaments which is perfect for this type of practice.

Another way to learn is to watch the pros. Last year I wrote down every key hand I played on my way to finishing 332nd out of 5600 entrants. You can replay these 96 hands in an online setting using The Poker Tutor available at my website. With The Poker Tutor, the hand will be paused at each key decision point and you'll be able to think of what you would do and then see how I actually played and my thoughts behind the action.

They say practice makes perfect. No one can prepare themselves completely for what they will face at the WSOP, but you can be better prepared than you otherwise might.