The Main Event is underway, and although Day 1A drew a disappointing number, many pros tout this event to be the best value tournament not just at the Series, but in the world.
As such, you need to approach the event with a different strategy to other tournaments and be able to adapt to the unique situations that crop up when playing a certain type of player. The Main Event throws out all sorts of players from seasoned pros to live satellite winners who've never previously played a tournament above £20 - treat everyone the same and assume you can just 'run over' the table, and you could be committing your first error.
I've never played the Main Event - or even had the $10,000 buy-in at hand - so to find out what the optimum approach is for the biggest event on the poker calendar, I decided to probe the minds of some of the pros gearing up for the long haul, starting with UK starlet James Dempsey who although doesn't have the best of records in this particular event, has a huge amount of MTT experience including a bracelet win in last year's WSOP.
Bracelet-winner James Dempsey:
"Last year, I spewed it off and just didn't play very well at all. I didn't come in with the right mindset on Day 2. I don't want to have any regrets this time around. My strategy coming in was to just win as many pots as possible against as many weak spots as possible hoping to stack them.
"I've got a starting stack now eight hours in, and I had double that before, so it's pretty frustrating looking around at other stacks and thinking how useful that would be. But whether you've got 30,000 or 60,000, it doesn't make that much difference when the target is to get up to a hundred million or when the antes are like 25,000. I'm trying to look at it like that way and not get too worried; it's not a 100-runner field. I just want to try and keep my cool.
I've got limited experience, but I imagine that when you get to Day 3 and 4, and in the money, it gets a lot tougher. There are people in the field that simply cannot cash."
Double WSOP Finalist Chris Moorman:
"So far, I've got it completely wrong. I've played it five times and I've never made Day 2. In the past, I'd put a lot of money in on the flop with a set, say, and also on the turn, and then on the river the flush will come and I'll have to fold, so I lose half my stack. I then spend the next couple of levels looking around and seeing people with towers of chips. Even though I'm doing okay compared to the blinds, I still get tilted and play bad. This year, I'm going to be more disciplined, so hopefully I can stay patient and maybe play a bit tighter than I normally do. Grind it out basically."
Blue Belt Kevin Williams:
"The great thing about the Main Event is that the structure is such that it doesn't have a big impact on how you play. And what I mean by that is that with fast or incredibly shallow tournaments, there are are things you just have to do when it comes to a certain point.
"The flexibility the Main Event gives you is that you can really just take your tables as they come. If you're on a particularly tough table, it's very feasible to literally not play a hand for a couple of levels and hope your table breaks and you move. So, my strategy is going to be about seeing who's on my table, adapting accordingly and trying to exploit the people who are playing the Main Event, or shouldn't have put up 10K.
"The first time I played the Main Event, the first thing that came across to me is that everybody cared because of the prestige. I really think you can use that to exploit players who would be difficult to exploit in other tournaments."
World Open Champion Sam Trickett:
"No strategy. I never have strategy. I just wait to see what my table's like. If it's weak, I'll probably play more hands, and if it's a tough table, I'll play less hands."
EPT Winner Arnaud Mattern:
"It depends on the table. I think most of them are going to play tight and not take too many risks or play big pots with marginal hands. Players are pretty face-up most of the time. They won't be firing three bullets and so on and they pay off too much in situations where it's impossible for you to be bluffing and stuff like this."
Blue Belt David Docherty:
"On Day 1, you really shouldn't be doing anything out of line and shouldn't be bluffing for the first four or five levels because your average table in the Main Event - or the ones I've experienced anyway - seems to be terrible. I think the best player I've played is Kenna James, and even he was terrible, so you shouldn't be trying anything too fancy.
"You also can't win the tournament on Day 1, so I think that main goal to start with is to just value-bet your hands, don't do anything silly and get through to Day 2. After that, it comes down to table draws and just manipulating whatever opponents you get."
GUKPT winner Stuart Rutter:
"Basically, anyone with an aim of making it through the day, or making a particular chip count, is making a poker mistake. The important thing is to just play each hand like a cash game, in isolation, to the best EV. On a weak table, that could well mean beating up on people a lot, especially in position.
"That's if the table is bad-tight; if it's bad-loose and passive, the aim is just to see a lot of flops and get a gift, so, either way, you re playing fairly unorthodox, adjusting to the table"
World Heads-Up Champion Nik Persaud:
"There's going to be a lot of bad players and the way to chip up in these is to win pots from the bad players. You might get lucky against a pro, but knowing how to play bad players is the key to winning the Main Event in my opinion. and then, later on, keeping your focus and remaining composed under pressure. Overcoming fatigue and having the will to win is what's going to be take you all the way."