Jim Reid is a longtime lover of poker, a member of the PokerOrg Player Advisory Board, and host of the popular RecPoker podcast.
Hey, gang! I’m used to playing my $10K poker tournaments as WSOP events at Caesars properties (humble brag), and even though the WPT World Championship event is held at the Wynn hotel instead, the immortal words of the great Roman emperor himself ring in my ears as I write this: veni, vidi, vici. In my case, unfortunately: I came, I saw, and…despite my best efforts, I was myself conquered by the poker gods.
But what a week in which to be conquered! I have to tip my hat to the fabulous Wynn hotel and poker room, and what I hope will be an enduring partnership with the World Poker Tour. Together, these two have created one of the most well-run and luxurious poker experiences in the world. From the tournament dealers and floor to the lobby custodians, every person I worked with on their staff was more than worth their salt.
The word ‘champion’ comes from the latin ‘campionum’ which means a fighter, a gladiator. And while I may have come home on my shield, I relished going caligae-to-caligae with some of the best players in the world. I’ll also always have a badge of honor that over a few of the hands we played, I drew blood from them as well.
OK, that’s enough heavy-handed ancient Greek and Roman references, let’s get on with some details from my trip!
The structure
With level one’s blinds starting at 300/500 with a 500 ante (300/500/500), my starting stack of 100,000 chips (including two of my favourite green 25,000 chips, my ‘baby avocados’!) meant that I began the day playing with 200 big blinds. But why not start with 20,000 chips at 100/100/100 instead, like many tournaments do? You are still playing 200 big blinds, right?
Well, if you do, when you move on to level two (100/200/200) you are immediately halving your effective stack, and now your 20,000 chips are only 100 big blinds instead of 200, and that’s a huge difference over one level.
The WPT Championship level two is 300/600/600, which means your starting stack of 100,000 is worth roughly 167 big blinds, and level three’s 400/800/800 means your starting stack is still worth 125 bigs. In fact, it isn’t until level four at 500/1,000/1,000 that your starting stack is only worth 100 bigs. That’s a much smoother reduction in the value of your stack, and one that even the irascible Allen Kessler would have to approve of!
There are also some interesting elements of the structure on later days, but that’s something I’ll hopefully have more time for next year. Unfortunately I was only a spectator for them this week, as I busted shortly after dinner break on Day 1C and never found a bag. Thanks for reminding me.
The lines
I can honestly say I’ve never wanted to be a woman more than on the too-brief bathroom breaks of the summer WSOP: with thousands of guys lined up around the block to relieve themselves, I’ve actually seen fights break out over who gets to ‘go’ first!
I don’t know if there were more women playing in this series, if there were fewer players generally, if the Wynn just has more men’s bathrooms available, or if the classy decor makes the fellas less pugnacious, but ALL the lines were shorter and more efficiently managed, and that includes tournament registration and alternates: I definitely threw up in my mouth a little at the prospect of handing over $10,400 to play in a poker tournament, but at least the lineup was over so quickly I barely had time to tweet about it.
The competition
I’m actually not talking about the caliber of play at the tables, but about the choice of the WSOP to host their tropical paradise series in direct competition with the WPT winter series at the Wynn and the EPT Prague series, forcing poker players around the world to choose between them.
Hey tournament executives, don’t be like the guys waiting to use the washrooms: can’t we all just get along? There are enough empty weeks in the poker calendar to go around; why make the players miss out?
And I’ll end this column with a warning: despite the WSOP legacy of bucket-list bracelet events over the last several decades, with an experience as flawless as the Wynn/WPT available in 2025 and in years to come, there may be a new champion in town.
You can follow Jim here at PokerOrg, on BlueSky and on X.
Image courtesy of WPT
