Are you headed to the World Series of Poker (WSOP) this year? Let me give you some advice I wish someone had given me during my first couple of years. With just a few adjustments, you’re going to have a lot more fun out there.
1. It’s a marathon, not a sprint
Most people show up in Vegas and get extremely excited, but the WSOP summer is a lot like going to a buffet. You get overwhelmed by all the options, start diving into anything that looks good, and before you know it, you’re full before you even get to what you actually wanted.
Take your time.
When you get to Las Vegas, there are going to be tournaments all over the place, and you’re going to want to play all of them. Do yourself a favor and figure out your schedule before you get there. Don't be afraid to schedule days off. Focus beats excess.
Pick the venues you actually like. If you haven’t been out there before, ask friends with similar tastes which casinos they enjoy playing in. You might even want to get there a day early, scout the different poker rooms, and see where you could realistically spend long hours playing a tournament.
2. Re-entries have changed everything
When you’re entering a tournament with re-entries, take the buy-in and multiply it by four – that's your real buy-in.
If you don’t end up using multiple re-entries, fantastic. But a lot of the time, you’re going to need to buy in again at least once or twice.
If everyone else is willing to re-enter and you’re not, that can put you at a serious disadvantage. They may be much more willing to bluff, gamble, and make loose call-downs against you because they know they have another bullet available.
If you never really bluff, that’s fine. Maybe you’ll get huge value when you do have strong hands. But with escalating blinds and antes, you do need the ability to bluff occasionally and have a backup plan if it doesn’t work.
Go in with a set number of buy-ins you’re willing to use. Ask yourself honestly whether you’re willing to take some chances early to build a big stack. If you’re not, and you feel like you’ll be at a disadvantage against people who are willing to gamble, don’t be afraid to late register and lean on your push-fold math if that’s where you’re more comfortable.
3. The bubble is supposed to be chaotic
One of the biggest mistakes I see people make when they first play tournaments in Las Vegas is getting way too tight on the bubble.
They’ve traveled all the way there. They’ve spent money on hotels, airfare, and meals. They’ve invested hours getting to the venue and grinding through the early stages of the tournament. So when the bubble arrives, all they want is that min-cash so they can tell their family they cashed in the WSOP and made the trip worth something.
That is the exact opposite of how you should be thinking.
Everyone else wants to go home and say they cashed at the WSOP too. That means you should be putting more pressure on people, not less.
For example, if someone raises to three big blinds from the hijack off a 50-big-blind stack, another 50-big-blind stack calls in the cutoff, another 50-big-blind stack calls on the button, and you look down at 
in the small blind with 29 big blinds, you should strongly consider jamming on the bubble.
A lot of people will still play the bubble like it’s normal poker. But when you hit them with a large shove, they often won’t know what to do because they haven’t studied those spots enough.
That said, don’t gamble recklessly on the bubble against someone who clearly wants to play a huge pot with you. But if you think you can shove, generate a lot of folds, and chip up, go for it. And if you do get called, remember: in no-limit hold’em, you’re rarely that big of an underdog.
4. This is not online poker
People are not going to run as many random bluffs against you deep in these live events.
They do not want to spend the rest of the year thinking about how they bluffed off all their chips during their big shot at World Series glory. If someone takes a very strong line, nine times out of ten, they just have a strong hand.
Be especially wary when someone raises the turn, raises the river, triple barrels, overbets, or donk-bets large on the river. Those lines are very often value-heavy in live WSOP events.
5. Do not call off all your chips too wide
Because people are not bluffing nearly as much deep in these tournaments, you need a very good reason to call off your stack.
Online, you can often call preflop all-ins a little wider. People get bored late at night. They have other tournaments running. They can fire up new events. And there’s an invisibility cloak online that lets people bluff without having to sit there and be embarrassed in front of everyone.
None of that exists live.
At the WSOP, people have to tell their friends back home how their trip went. Everyone at the table is watching them. Most players are not just jamming whatever they feel like deep in a tournament.
So be careful about calling off too wide.
The general rule deep in these tournaments is: shove light, call tight. Put pressure on them, but be careful once they finally get brave and put their chips in. Chances are, they are not bluffing you often enough.
Wishing you the best of luck at the series.
Alex Fitzgerald is a best-selling author published by D&B Poker. Check out Alex’s most recent book, ‘How to Beat Players Who Never Fold.’
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