World Series Of Poker Challenge 2006

First let me update the sit n go challenge from earlier. I did not make the $1,000 because I could not play enough tournaments.

Here were my final stats as of 11/15/05:
Tournaments: 124
ROI%: 39.3%
Total Won: $536
Firsts: 18
Seconds: 22
Thirds: 17

Granted it is not a very significant sample size but it did confirm that I am definitely good enough to crush the 10+1's. The bigger question is whether I have the game for the 55's. I had 225 at that level and only a 2% ROI.

Now for the World Series. A couple of weeks ago, Billy was watching the replays of the 2005 WSOP and couldn't believe some of the bad plays he was seeing. Now granted, Billy was only looking at things on a surface level and does not know some of the meta game strategy going on in these events, but basically it was an accurate statement.

Billy then offerred to give me $5,000 to sponsor me 1/2 of the entry into the Main Event in 2006. He figured that I would never play in the tournament on my own and this way he can help a friend's dream come true. Now in order to take this "risk" he wanted a chance at some big rewards down the road. So he said that I would have to pay him 100% of the first 10k in winnings and 60% after that. Plus I would have to pay his way to Vegas. He also put in that if I happen to qualify in a satellite before the event then he would receive 10% of my winnings since I would not have been there in the first place unless he gave me the $5,000 up front.

So in one sense this is a very generous offer. If only 10% of the entrants make money and I figure I am better than at least 50% of the players in the room, then I only have a 1 in 5 chance of making any money at all. If Billy is right, that I would never buy in on my own then this may make sense.

The problem is that I am convinced that I will play in the World Series someday. I think I can qualify via satellite one way or another. This year, I did not really set up a plan for qualifying. I diddled around on the Party Poker Steps but that was it. I also tried to play a one table satellite for one of the smaller tournaments and that ended for me on the first hand with my Aces getting cracked. Most of the time, I was still concentrating on trying to build up my bankroll.

With my conviction about playing someday, I believe I should be entitled to a bigger cut of the money if Billy sponsors me. Robert could not believe that I was turning down a free $5000 for a "once in a lifetime" experience. After further discussion I told Robert that I was willing to bet a large amount of money that within 5 years I will play in the Main Event. We settled on dinner at the Ocean Club. Therefore here is my challenge for 2006.

I will play in the Main Event of the World Series of Poker in 2006.

Here is my plan. The online sites will start running satellites in late May or early June. I will find the best value for the money and attempt to qualify through those. If that doesn't work, I will book at least one weekend trip to Vegas during the preliminary events and play in at least one of their daily live satellites.

In the mean time, I want to build up $3,000 in bankroll specifically for the purpose of qualifying for the the Main Event. That gives me 6 months to build that up. The safest way to do that would be to play on a site exclusively as my WSOP bankroll site. I can keep the rest of my poker bankroll on the other sites and play other games that will keep my interest. My main money making game will probably be the sit-n-go's since I think my win rate is the highest there and the variance is rather low. So I will probably have to choose between Party or Poker Stars for the WSOP quest.