Win the WSOP in 6 months

Chris Moneymaker. Jamie Gold. Jerry Yang. These three names sum up the real draw of the WSOP Main Event: anybody can win it. Next year, it could be you.

Just imagine around $8m in tax-free cash, the world championship bracelet and a lucrative sponsorship deal ­ sounds pretty good, right?
To put you on the path to glory, PokerPlayer has consulted a mix of world champions and November Niners to compile the ultimate six-month training plan to qualify for ­ and win ­ the 2011 Main Event. Over the next few pages you¹ll find expert guidance on building a bankroll, winning online and live WSOP satellites, playing live deep-stack tourneys and finally, how to approach the Big Dance itself. Follow our advice and poker immortality could be yours.

January: Build an online bankroll

BANKROLL NEEDED: $100

Our first objective in winning the $10,000 WSOP Main Event is to get into the tournament on the cheap. While it is possible to satellite your way in for free, the huge fields in those freerolls means your chances of making it are roughly equivalent to Mike Matusow¹s chances of winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Instead, make a deposit of $100 online and concentrate on building that up. Most sites have first deposit bonuses, so take advantage of these and your $100 will be returned to you within the month anyway. The aim in month one is to spin your $100 up to $500. This will give you enough of a bankroll to get practising online satellites without the threat of going broke.

At low stakes the best way to spinup a bankroll is in cash games, starting at the $0.05/$0.10 level and moving up to $0.10/$0.25 when your bankroll reaches $200. It may sound like an odd way to start when your goal is the biggest tournament in the world, but it will teach you some great preflop fundamentals. These games will be easy to beat if you adopt a tight-aggressive style. Play the top 15% of hands, try to enter for a raise and value-bet really strongly as the majority of your opponents will be too loose and eager to pay you off with garbage. Do that, keep the bluffing to a minimum and you should have a carefree ride to the $500 milestone. It will also give you a solid grounding in the patient preflop style you need early on in a tournament.

Greg Raymer’s Pro Tip: My number one tip is to play fewer hands. At all stakes, most players play too many hands. Number two is to bluff less. Be sure that it is a good time and situation before you try to pull off a bluff.

February/March: Practise satellites online

BANKROLL NEEDED: $500

Okay this is where the hard work starts. Online satellites for the Main Event don¹t start until around April but it¹s vital to practise the skills you¹ll need before that. The best way to do this is by trying to qualify for the big weekly online tourneys such as the $215 PokerStars Sunday Million.

Don¹t spend more than $50 each week trying to qualify and stick to the larger field, cheaper satellites that guarantee a certain number of seats.
When it comes to satellite strategy, the most important thing to remember is that you¹re not there to win the tournament but merely to win a seat. That means keeping a keen eye on the lobby at all times to see where you are placed in relation to the average stack size ­ from there you can work out approximately how many chips you’ll need to qualify and assess what risks you need to take. For example, if you¹re a big stack near the bubble make sure you don¹t contest any big pots without the absolute nuts and just focus on stealing blinds to maintain your position. On the other hand, if you are short-stacked you¹ll have to decide whether you can wait it out or if you will be forced to find good spots to shove.

If you do qualify in one of the budget Sunday Million satellites, it¹s up to you whether to play in the event or cash in the tournament dollars to help build your bankroll. Remember that the main goal here is to become an expert at online satellites, as they are the easiest and cheapest route to the WSOP Main Event.

Joe Hachem’s pro tip: My best advice for beating satellites would be to play tight, tight, tight. You don¹t need to win all the chips, you need merely to survive.

April: Qualify for the Main Event!

BANKROLL NEEDED: $2,000

Right, now that you¹re an online satellite master it¹s time to win your way to Vegas to play in the Big One. The first thing you should do when trying to qualify for the Main Event online is to scout out the best value tournaments. Look around at the smaller sites and you should find plenty of satellites offering huge overlays (where the guaranteed prizepool is greater than the sum of the buy-ins), making it much easier to qualify.
With a $1k bankroll you have a cushion to have a few attempts at qualifying.

Don¹t go crazy and risk over $500 on a single satellite though. Even though your chances of qualifying look good, these big buy-in satellites are often filled with pros. Stick to the cheaper $50-$200 super-satellites as you¹ll have the bankroll to afford plenty of shots.

Satellite strategy in WSOP satellites doesn¹t change much, but the major difference will be in your mentality at the table. Whereas last month you were playing for a $215 seat, this time it¹s serious, with Main Event packages worth at least $12k. However, you must block this out while playing. If you get distracted by how much money is on the line it will be impossible to play your optimal game. Try to think only of playing your best and exploiting those who are being too tight. If all goes well, your seat in the Main Event will be assured and you can move onto the next step in the plan. However, if you don¹t qualify this month don¹t worry, you¹ve still got until July!

Chris Moneymaker’s pro tip: If you are playing in a satellite that only awards one or two Main Event seats then you have to play more aggressively than a normal satellite, because you must go for the win.

May: Live Tournament Practice

BANKROLL NEEDED: £250

These days the majority of poker players never step foot into a casino and choose only to play online. To win the WSOP Main Event though it is
essential that you get some live tournament experience under your belt before you sit down at the Rio. This month it’s time to venture into the great outdoors and play as many live tournaments as you can. While it will be impossible to replicate the pressure of the Main Event, there are subtle intricacies to live play that you need to learn. Seemingly small errors such as string-betting, failing to calculate pot and stack sizes correctly and giving off live tells could all cost you big in Vegas, so get up to speed now.

There’s no need to break the bank this month though. Many casinos now hold weekly tournaments with buy-ins below £50 and a decent structure, so aim to play at least four of these and make a final table. Live tournaments are generally far fishier than online so this should be achievable provided variance is kind to you. Get confident in your live game and treat this as preparation for the real thing to come.

The main things to learn this month are patience and live tells. Force yourself to act the same way in every hand to avoid giving off tells at the table and keep a close eye on the action to see what you can pick up from other players. There is a world of additional information available in the live environment so don’t miss out.

Chris Moneymaker’s pro tip: If you have a big stack in a normal tournament you should usually try to bully the table. There will be lots of spots where you should shove, because playing for first now gives a far better return than a min-cash.

June: Last-chance live satellites in Vegas

BANKROLL NEEDED: $1,000

If you’ve already managed to qualify online you should spend another month playing live tournaments and big-field online tournaments to get plenty of practice in. If you didn’t make it yet, there is one last chance to win a seat at the Big One, but it’s not for the faint-hearted. If you¹re really feeling brave, our back-up plan is to book a flight and take a week’s holiday in Sin City. In the weeks leading up to the Main Event the Rio holds scores of live daily satellites ranging from around $200 to $1k sit-and-gos.

Don’t be put off by the high buy-ins, as these are among the softest tournament fields you will find anywhere in the world. Get on a plane and jump into the Main Event satellites immediately. Though they award fewer seats per player, the $200-$300 satellites will be populated by bad amateurs and these are where you should start. All the principles of satellite strategy that you learnt earlier still apply, but be prepared to value-bet your hands even thinner against these calling stations. Above all else, don¹t run any huge bluffs ­ live players in Vegas will find any excuse to call you down after a few free drinks.

If you think the outlay on flights and hotels is all too much then treat it as a holiday that you have earned through your hard work over the past four months. Even if you fail to win a Main Event seat, you¹ll still be in the greatest poker and gambling city on earth, so everyone¹s a winner.

James Akenhead’s pro tip: If a $1,000 sit-and-go is too much you could buy into a $300 satellite, get tournament chips to enter a $1k and create your own steps system in that way.

July: Main Event time

Shuffle up and deal! Sitting down and hearing those famous words on day one of the Main Event is an experience like nothing else in poker. You¹ve put in a lot of hard work to get this far so don¹t let yourself down now.

Even though there are poker tables as far as the eye can see it¹s vital that you concentrate just on your own table and take it one hand at a time. The structure for the Main Event is the best in the world, with long levels and 300 big blind starting stacks, allowing you to keep up a tight strategy early on. It¹s important to look to exploit inexperienced players by set-mining, as you have great implied odds and they may be incapable of folding overpairs if you hit a set.

From there it is all about taking it one day at a time, avoiding big pots without big hands and getting lucky when you need to. Before you know it you¹ll be on the money bubble and then getting deeper and deeper into the tournament. The remaining players at this stage are likely to be skilled pros who have a significant edge postflop. As such, avoid calling raises and look to three-bet or four-bet instead. By instigating most of the action preflop you make it tough for better players to outplay you. From there, it’s all up to you.

James Akenhead’s pro tip: Play really tight. There¹s no rush and there¹s no reason to get involved early on. If you think you’re playing tight then play 20% tighter.