Every year, the World Series of Poker Main Event takes place in Las Vegas, costing $10,000 to enter and welcoming some of the weirdest and wackiest poker players on the planet. It’s the best value buy-in of the year for the professionals who wait all year to sit down and battle it out for millions with an advantage over much of the field.
If you’re an up-and-coming poker player with a smaller budget but no less skill, how can you enter the World Series of Poker for less than the total buy-in? There are $1,000-entry satellites at the Rio, of course, but even they are out of the bankroll management strategy of a large percentage of poker players.
How about $100? Yes, we believe we can get you in pole position to win millions of dollars for the investment total of a bumper family pizza order and just 1% of the $10,000 Main Event buy-in.
Turning $100 into $500
They say the first million is the hardest in business. In poker, turning that initial investment into profit relies on you being good enough at the game to run a profit. If you’re just starting out, that’s not an impossibility, but it is very difficult. On that basis, we’re assuming that you’re a profitable player who is taking a shot by trying to run this $100 initial investment up.
If so, then multiplying your starting investment by five is the original aim for this project. Playing $1/$2 cash in Las Vegas should get you so far, but with some Nevada-based WSOP events and poker available, combine live and online to run it up to at least $300, i.e. your initial $100 and $200 more.
With that $200, play in one of the $200-entry Wynn Daily $10,000 guarantee tournaments. Taking place between Sundays and Thursdays, they’re great value and could easily yield a solid return on your investment if you bring you’re A-Game. You only need to double your entry, so a min-cash will do, added to your $100 remaining makes $500.
If you bust before the money, return to your initial step and grind that $200 back again before firing in the $200 Wynn Daily, or if you win a bit more, their $230 or $300 buy-in events, which take place on Fridays and Saturdays respectively.
Reaching a Grand Total
From turning $100 into $500, your mission is now to double your money. On the face of it, doubling your total fund rather than multiplying it by five as you’ve just done may seem simple.
The reality is, however, that you’re now stepping up the levels and you need to remember that and play the next level with even more respect. From playing the Wynn, you can now move up to the $100-entry Rio ‘lammers’ sit ‘n’ go’s, where you can play in a ‘shootout’ style against nine others. The format decrees that at least five of the 10 players will be casual players, so play your absolute ICM heart out in these and give them your all.
Elsewhere, you can now play Venetian events, which generally range between $400-$800 this summer. Again, if you play a $400-entry event and min-cash, you’re almost up to $1,000 rather than needing to work hard in the ‘lammers’ sit ‘n’ go’s.
The tournament schedule at the Venetian is a varied one with opportunities everywhere to make some big money. You could even win so much that flicking $10,000 into the WSOP Main Event is little impact on your stack, but either way, you only need a small return on your money to be up to four figures.
Making the Stack of High Society…and Guaranteeing Profit
Once you’re up to $1,000, you can of course keep playing Wynn and Venetian tournaments but with 10 buy-ins to lammers events and four buy-ins to the $250-entry Rio Daily events, as well as double that to $125-entry events. You can also start to play in WSOP events that are at the cheaper point of entry.
These include but aren’t limited to the Colossus, as well as the Reunion, both of which cost less than $600 to play. Aside from the fact that you can make serious money in tournaments such as the Deepstack Championship, it’s going to be possible to win $10,000 — your entry into the big one — for a position far lower down than the winner.
That’s true of many events, and if you do manage to fall a little short, then we’d suggest selling your action, a good idea even if you do make the full buy-in. that way, you’ve made a little back on your efforts whether you win or lose.
Let’s imagine that you make $8,000. If you sell $4,000 of your WSOP Main Event seat ($10,000), then you have $2,000 change and have 60% of yourself in the biggest poker tournament on Earth — We’d call that a great November.
