Decision: Which donkament to enter?

Warning: Extremely dull post, mostly me talking to myself.


Now that I have a $1500 WSOP buy-in covered, I have to decide which donkament to enter.

It's a no-brainer that it will be a hold'em event rather than one of the other games, because it makes no sense to blow my one shot on a game other than the one that is my bread and butter. I thought briefly about making it a mixed limit/no-limit event, but it turns out that there is none at that entry fee. Last year there were both $5000 and $1500 mixed limit/no-limit events, but this year those have been replaced by a single $2500 tournament. So that's out. I might have considered doing razz, but last year's $1500 event has been bumped up to $2500 this time around.

There's a short-handed (6 max) event, but, again, that's moving outside of my zone of maximal comfort. I spend very little time playing shorthanded, and when I do, I find myself definitely having trouble appropriately adjusting starting hand requirements and level of aggression. I'm not a great NLHE player by any stretch, but I'm at least generally competent, and I see no point in entering a format in which other people are specialists.

Those considerations narrow down the options to just the straight $1500 NLHE, full-table, no rebuy donkaments--with one exception. I could do the shootout format (Event #22, Wednesday, June 10). The advantage of it is a smaller field, and thus better chance for cashing. But, again, I would necessarily spend a far higher percentage of the time playing shorthanded, which doesn't hit my area of maximum strength. I haven't completely ruled it out, however.

If it's narrowed down to the freezeout $1500 NLHE donkaments, I have to choose from what appears to be seven of them, identical in structure (three days) and payout schedule:


Event # Date

7 June 2 (Tuesday)
24 June 11 (Thursday)
28 June 13 (Saturday)
34 June 16 (Tuesday)
39 June 20 (Saturday)
51 June 27 (Saturday)
54 June 29 (Saturday)


Basically, I want to minimize the resistance of the field to contend with: smaller is better (because I'm willing to trade a smaller total purse for greater chance of going deep). Also, fewer career pros is better. The easiest path to the money is for me.

First consideration: Earlier in the WSOP schedule, or later? Later has the advantage that people who are coming to town to play a bunch of events will be more fatigued after a few weeks of playing, partying, and not sleeping much. On the other hand, the last couple (especially Event #54) will likely catch some people whose primary target is the Main Event, but they'll treat these as a warm-up, so they'll be freshly coming to town. Later events may also be more more pro-heavy, as those who haven't picked up a bracelet try to enter everything in sight. Conversely, though, Event #51, on a Saturday, has the unique status of starting on the second day of the five-day $50,000 championship HORSE tournament, which will presumably take most of the big-name pros out of it. (Nearly all of the donkaments have a $10,000 championship event in something going on simultaneously, so that's mostly a wash.)

What about day of the week? One would guess that events starting on Saturdays will have more entrants than those starting on weekdays. This appears to be confirmed by last year's results. The kickoff event was a donkament, so it was really an outlier, breaking records with a field of 3929. (No kickoff donkament this year.) Taking that one out, the three Saturday events had amazingly consistent fields: between 2706 and 2720. The events that started on weekdays--one each on a Monday, a Tuesday, and a Thursday--averaged only 2481. Even that number was pulled up by the final one, which was close to the Main Event and thus probably swelled by the factors I mentioned above. It had 2693, while the other two had just 2304 and 2447. So weekday starts are almost certain to have fields smaller by a few hundred people, which is good, in my way of looking at it. That would make the choice between Events 7, 24, and 34, if I discount #54 because of likely being swollen in attendance due to its proximity to the Main Event, as with last year's final donkament.

Ultimately, though, it may primarily come down to my WSOP work schedule and when I can get days off. I think I'm going to become a complete nightowl during the series, because most of what I expect to be doing will be in the 2:00-6:00 a.m. range. That means that I'm tentatively expecting to shift my sleeping to almost entirely daytime hours and stay up all night. If the work schedule can accommodate it, it might be easier to slip in some "normal" daytime tournament playing at the earliest possible point (Event #7), before I've gotten too used to that regimen.

So those are the basic considerations. I haven't yet settled on how they will be weighed into a final decision.

See? I warned you this was going to be a deadly dull post. Your own fault if you read through it anyway.