WCOOP Decision

Well, after consulting with a number of people, I decided not to play the WCOOP main event. I think that it would’ve probably been slightly +$EV to play the tournament, even with all the scheduling conflicts, but I don’t need to take every small +$EV opportunity that comes along. If I did, I would play poker for as many hours as possible, every single day. I basically became a poker player exactly so I wouldn’t have to work all the time. Therefore, I decided that rather than lose a ton of sleep, and be unfocused for Day Two of both tournaments, I would get a day’s rest, and a good night’s sleep, and be very focused for one tournament. As of this writing, it’s 1 a.m. and there are still 685 people left in WCOOP, so I’m liking my decision even more. Had I played, there would’ve been a very real chance of making Day Two, not cashing for very much, and getting blinded out of Borgata in the process. And who knows, I might not have enjoyed the J-E-T-S victory today as much if I’d had to play poker immediately afterwards.

Stoxpoker coach Garrett Beckman is currently in 14th place in WCOOP as I type this. I wish him the best of luck for the rest of tonight and tomorrow.

I, meanwhile, am going to get some sleep for Borgata.

WCOOP Dilemma

Those of you who have been following my tweets know that I’ve made it to Day Two of the Borgata Poker Open WPT event with above-average chips. Day One was broken up into two days, and I chose to play Saturday so that I would have the option of playing the WCOOP main event on Sunday. Now that I’ve got through Day One of Borgata it’s decision time.

You see, WCOOP main event is a two-day event. If I do well enough in WCOOP to get to Day Two, it would start at 5 p.m. eastern on Monday. Borgata Day Two starts at 11 a.m. on Monday, and it’s a five-day event all together. WCOOP ends late Monday night.

So should I play? Here are some relevant facts.

- I project about 250 players/10 percent of the field will be left at the end of Day One of WCOOP. Remaining players will have locked in about one buy-in ($5k) of profit.
- About half the field survived Borgata Day 1a.
- At the time that WCOOP Day Two starts, we’ll be at Level 13 of Borgata, and about 25% of the field will remain. There is about a 65% chance I will still be in the tournament at this time.
- In the worst-case scenario for the Borgata event, I would miss levels 13-16, which would cost about 77k in tournament chips (EV =  $8;470; it was a $3300+200 event, and we started with 30k in chips). Of course, in that “worst-case scenario,” I probably do very well in WCOOP.
- Day One of WCOOP will finish around 5 a.m. Day Two of Borgata starts at 11 a.m., so not much time to sleep.
- WCOOP main event has a guaranteed prize pool of $10 million, Borgata’s guarantee is $2 million. They got about 300 people for Day 1a, and are expecting significantly more for Day 1b.
- The televised nature of the Borgata event adds some to the equity.
- The WCOOP field will be significantly tougher than the Borgata field.
- I thought I played well with a deep stack today, and I’m a pretty good deep stack player in general, but playing with a deep stack is definitely not my greatest strength as a tournament player. Both events are extremely deep stacked.

After writing all this out, I know which way I’m leaning, but I want to hear from you, the masses. Please post advice in the comments, although please try to refrain from saying, “yeah, play!” and nothing else. Even one reason is enough.

Good luck to everyone playing the big one online later today.