Images courtesy of the World Series of Poker
Last Sunday, June 14, I headed to Las Vegas on an 11:30 am Southwest flight out of Long Beach, California.
I normally drive to Vegas because I enjoy rubbing elbows with a population averaging five UFO sightings, or I’ll fly out of Burbank, but the Long Beach ticket only costs 107 bucks, $218 less than a Burbank departure, and I needed to have every available dollar to put to work at the 2026 World Series of Poker.
So I was happy to make the 35-minute drive to Long Beach, or to misquote MSNOW’s Ari Melber when he’s misquoting Snoop:
There was no drama riding to The LBC,
Cause I needed to save that do-re-mi.
I did valet park, but it was only seven bucks more than regular parking, and they throw in a free car wash. “I’ve already won,” I said to myself.
Long Beach Airport, or LBG, is nice, small, and easy to get in and out of. I was early enough to have a pretty decent breakfast at a restaurant with outdoor patio seating, and even had time to crack out my laptop and finish off last week’s column. You’re welcome.
Once I landed in Vegas, I had a few things to tick off on my agenda before I started playing poker.
First, I had to check into my hotel, The Fontainebleau. It’s a pretty upscale spot, but thanks to hours spent playing Pai Gow there with my wife, I had two free nights. Okay, when you add up what we lost at the tables, I have to admit there may have been a cost for the room. But no resort fee! Let’s Go! I had a base-level Bleau room waiting for me.
The symbol of The Fontainebleau that informs every design element in the building, including the actual shape of said building, is a bowtie. The Bleau rooms are all located in the knot of this bow.
I knew from past experience that these are very narrow rooms, recalling the stateroom scene from A Night At The Opera, so I asked if a complimentary upgrade was available. Indeed, they had a much nicer Gold room, no extra charge! I thought, wow, maybe I should just book a winner and go home now.
But then we wouldn’t have much of a story.
After dropping my bags in my Gold room on the 37th floor with a view of the Strip, I headed to VIP Services at the Paris to pick up my WSOP press credentials. This took less than five minutes, and they were nice enough to also certify me on the WSOP Live app, so I could immediately start putting tournament fees on my credit card for an added fee at an usurious rate. The app can be a trap, but fortunately, I had a budget and a plan that I was going to stick to.
Despite my complaints, the WSOP app works incredibly well. You no longer need to go to a kiosk to get your seat card printed. Your ticket just appears in the app once you’ve registered. You show it to the dealer, he asks for your I.D., and then he resumes dealing cards in the wrong direction. More on this later.
I perused the available tournaments on the app and saw that a bargain $240 Landmark Satellite paying winners $2000 in tournament vouchers started shortly. Considering myself a satellite specialist, also known as a space cadet, I decided to try my luck.
For the uninitiated, satellites are feeders into more expensive tournaments, and landmark satellites are a variant where, in order to win, you must build your chips to ten times a starting stack.
My plan was to play day 1A of the $1000 No Limit Hold’em Seniors the next morning, so finishing in the money in this satty would save me 760 bucks, with another thousand left over to fire a second bullet, if necessary.
A few months back, I had shown up to The Irish Poker Open fresh off the plane, sat down in a 140 euro satellite, and three hours later had a seat in the 1100 euro Main Event. My solver disapproved game, as detailed in that article, is very suited to win satellites.
Alas, I did not finish in the money in this satellite. The cards didn’t come. I was a little rusty. No worries, time for a do-over. At these prices, I can’t afford not to play.
The app showed me that there was another satellite starting at 7pm. However, this was an $1100 Landmark for the following day’s $10,000 Razz Championship.
This hadn’t been on my radar or in my budget, but I love Razz, a lowball variant of 7-card stud, and “Playing the 10K for only $1100 would be a savings of 8900 bucks!” said the devil on my hunched shoulder. “Or, more likely, a loss of 1100,” said the angel on my other shoulder in a chorus with logic and sanity.
I’ve only played in one live Razz tournament, but I did cash. I discussed the matter over dinner with my friend and fellow traveler in poker and content creation, @vegasnervepoker, aka Jason Gallagher. The discussion went like this:
Me: I know it’s crazy, but I’m thinking of playing the satellite into the Razz 10K.
Jason: Do it!
Me: Ok, you talked me into it.
I was glad that Jason’s enthusiasm for me playing this event mirrored my own, but once I signed up for it on the app, my budget mirrored that of the White House ballroom. Knowing that the Razz 10k would attract all the best mixed game players in town, I prepared by having several mixed drinks.
I’m kidding. Instead, I reviewed in my head what I remembered reading in a book put out by the disgraced former poker site, Full Tilt, that was intended to be the tournament version of Doyle Brunson’s Super/System.
Mirroring what Doyle did for cash games, the book has chapters on every form of tournament poker written by an expert in that game. The Razz section was written by Ted Forrest and Huck Seed, and the main advice I recalled was to only play a hand if you start with a 3-card 8 or better.
That is, after the initial deal of three cards, you should only continue if all three cards were 8 or lower and unpaired. The other tidbits that I knew to be true for all variations of 7-card stud were:
- Make a note of what cards are on the other players’ folded boards, so you know how it affects your and the villain’s outs.
- Fifth street, where the bets double, is the turning point where, if you haven’t made your hand yet, it’s probably time to stop chasing.
The game is played like a statue of a Hindu deity: eight-handed. When I sat down in the Horseshoe Event Center, there were only six of us at the table to start.
We each began with 15,000 starting stacks with the goal of reaching the landmark of ten times that, 150,000. The antes and limits increased every 30 minutes. My cards ran like the air conditioning in this giant room, hot and cold.
In Razz, when the first three cards come out, two are down and one, your door card, is dealt face up. Whoever has the worst door card, in this case the highest ranked, is forced to open for a bring-in, which is a half bet.
The rest of the players can call, complete to a full bet, and then raise. You’re trying to make the lowest five-card hand, and straights don’t count against you. Aces are low, so the nuts is A-2-3-4-5. A 6-4 is the second-best hand and so on.
It’s a crazy, and crazy-making game. Hands that start out super promising, like A-2-4, end up pairing on fourth and fifth street. Then, with one card to come and a lot of your stack in the middle, you have a four-card 7, and the last card, dealt down, comes a king.
The WSOP infamously televised one Razz tournament in the mid 2000’s and never again because all the players did was complain about their cards.
“The only reason I’d play this game again is if I lost a bet,” said every Razz player ever.
I had some interesting hands, ranging from making a very disguised wheel on sixth street to winning with Jack high when my opponent triple-paired. More typically, I alternately won and lost with 7 or 8-highs in close contests at showdown. And of course, there was a lot of folding.
In a Razz tournament, as the limits and antes go up, you find yourself committing a lot of your stack to try and win. When it works out, you’re healthy again, but when it doesn’t, you might be left with crumbs.
Ultimately, I had only a few big bets left and got all in with a good hand, an 8-6, but the other guy had a 7 high, and that’s all she wrote.
Well, I’d now spent 1340 on satellites with nothing to show for it. I was still going to play the seniors the next day, so it was time to go to bed.
Tune in next week for the rest of my misadventure.
And Now the News…. Every Hand Re-Dealed
Would be an appropriate title for a book about the 2026 World Series of Poker. As already discussed in this space, in the first week of the series, an instruction card was part of a flop in the $500 Mystery Bounty.
Two weeks ago, a rash of four-card flops were spread at the Paris and Horseshoe, costing one player at the final table his tournament life.
Then, this past week in the $500 Colossus, a colossal error was made in the first and final hand of heads-up play between Myles German and Justin Smith.
The dealer dealt the button first. The button is always dealt last, even in heads-up play when the button is also the small blind, which is normally dealt first. You can see how one might get confused.
As a result, Smith was dealt AK, and German was dealt 88. All the money went in, and Smith won with a flush on the river. Everyone agrees that German should have won the hand.
He expressed that he feels like a bracelet was taken from him, but amazingly also acknowledged that it was an incredibly difficult and complex situation. Very civilized. I would be complaining until the end of time, but I guess after WW I and WW II, the Germans are used to losing.
Finally, an automatic shuffler at the WSOP dealt the exact same hands and board to hands in a row.
Personally, I would love this because it would give me a chance to correct my misplay of a hand while it’s fresh in my memory.
Favorite Moment from the WSOP Live Stream, So Far
In the $600 Mixed Game, WSOP Circuit breaker Maurice Hawkins, outclassed if not out-sassed by a final table that included Daniel Negreanu, Brian Rast, and Alex Foxen, found himself heads up for his first bracelet vs. Brent Gregory.
In the penultimate hand, the game was Limit Hold’em. Hawkins had 7♦4♦ vs. Gregory’s K♥4♥. The flop was K♦5♦3♠, putting Gregory in the lead, but Hawkins had flush and straight draws.
The board ran out 2♣Q♥, and the draws, much like Hawkins himself in bankruptcy court, failed to appear.
Have a great week.
