It’s always been a dream of mine to play in the $10,000 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event.
Everyone at the final table (top 9 finishers) make approximately $1 million or more. First place routinely pulls in $10 million. That’s life changing money!
I first became interested in poker in high school. It was a historic time in poker as online poker became extremely popular. 18-25 year-olds were making a ridiculous amount of money. I even went to high school with someone who cashed over $300,000 in an online poker tournament. (If you are curious about his story, check out my interview with him DINKS Finance).
While I never made hundreds of thousands playing poker, I did make some money and committed a somewhat pathetic amount of time to the game. I enjoyed the strategy behind the game and I always have been interested in how the lifestyles are changed when poker players become successful.
A goal of mine has been to play in the $10,000 WSOP Main Event. The problem is this: there is no way I could justify committing $10,000 to a single poker tournament. The reason poker is exciting is because any player has a chance of winning on any given day. Professionals win over time, but they could easily not cash in 20 tournaments straight if the cards don’t fall their way.
So the question really isn’t should I play in the $10,000 WSOP Main Event, but how can I play in the $10,000 WSOP Main Event?
I’m all about aligning dreams with reality. If I really wanted to play in the $10,000 main event, but can’t justify buying in, there are a few options available:
1) Win a seat through a tournament
Many people who have never played online poker likely do not know the significance of the term “Black Friday.” Black Friday was when the United States government shut down all the online poker sites that were operating in the United States, such as Poker Stars and Full Tilt. While online poker will likely be legalized within a couple years, there simply isn’t as many “qualifier” tournaments to play in. Online sites used to have tournaments where you could buy in for say, $100, and there would be 100 players in the tournament. The winner would win a buy-in to the $10,000 main event.
That doesn’t mean that there are no satellites, just fewer. I could buy in a qualifying tournament here in Minnesota and potentially win a seat to the main event. If I were to take this route I would ideally re-familiarize myself with tournament poker strategy. After all, some people play tournaments every single weekend; I play only about one a year. There are many sites that are devoted to strategy. If you don’t know basic strategy you are unlikely to win a tournament; especially one where the top prize is an entry into the main event.
2) Work really hard until I can justify buying in $10,000
There are many business executives and other professionals who could easily afford the $10,000 main event buy-in. It’s a drop in the bucket for many who have made millions. The second way I could play – and actually “afford” to play – is to work really hard in my career or build a business that I later sell for a large lump sum.
I still think the satellite is ideal, though, because if I took the approach of just “working hard” until I (potentially) can afford to buy into a $10,000 poker tournament, I might be in my 50s or 60s before I ever get to play. The World Series of Poker is more fun if the money is life-changing. If I won $1 million or more and I already have a couple million in the bank, it just means my dividend income would increase.
3) Win a big lump sum of cash in a giveaway
Everyone who knows me knows that I’m a big advocate of entering giveaways. I’ve won a lot of decent giveaways such as an iPad, trip to Hawaii, trip to the All-Star Game, and some big gift cards (in the $250-$400 range). Granted, besides the Hawaii trip none of these wins were life-changing. The important thing, though, is to at least have your name in the hat for bigger giveaways.
For example, the HGTV Dream Home giveaway happens every year. Not only do you get an extremely nice house, you also win $250,000. Even after selling the home and paying all the taxes, you will still have made hundreds of thousands of dollars – perhaps in the $500k to $1M range. If I won that sum of money I would be extremely tempted to take $10,000 out of my winnings and play in the WSOP Main Event. Needless to say, I’ve been entering the Dream Home Giveaway every day.
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First Photo by Logan Ingalls
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I say you enter a few of the $100 tourney’s up to a certain point like say $1000, if you don’t win any of the events, then if you are still set on making it happen coming up with 10K/11K at least you tried another way first. However while I think going to the WSOP is a great goal, I bet the first time earning your way there would feel that much better, either through a satellite or grinding it out in cash/tournaments.
Let me know what you decide………Side note charity event in Chicago for CF has a grand prize of WSOP with airfare, just saying;)
EvenStevenMoney I just tweeted with a couple of the card rooms here in Minnesota to see when they will post details of their satellites. I know for sure one of them will be running satellites in May. I’d really like to keep my buy in around $100-$250 per tourney. That keeps the field “small enough” while the buy-in also is affordable.
Let me know details about the charity event! I have airline miles to get to Chicago free (flights are cheap from MSP as well) so I’d consider going, especially if it’s for a good cause.
Hey DC,
When I read the first line of this post, my advice was already ‘if it’s really a dream of yours, and there’s a way to make it happen, then do it!’. $10k is definitely a lot of money, so Even Steven’s advice sounds pretty good, and I can see why you’d want to really justify spending $10k on something like this. But why not try save the money right now, if it’s that important to you? You don’t need to become a millionaire to justify it either, why not just look at it like you have $10k worth of debt to pay off, and you’re going after it aggressively – then when you’ve ‘paid off’ that entrance fee ‘debt’ of $10k, you’re ready to go!
The questions is will you regret NOT doing it – looking back when you’re 50, and have plenty of money and a good life, and think ‘man I wish I’d just forked out that $10k and done that thing I always dreamt about doing when I was young!’