Poker Archives

5 Ways to Enjoy the WSOP Without Spending $10,000

June 25, 2018June 24, 2018 Heather Leave a comment

Disclosure: Some of the links on this page are affiliate links. However, we would never recommend a product or service that we don’t use and love ourselves. We promise! For more information, see our Disclosure page.

Paul and I are heading to Las Vegas this week for the 2018 World Series of Poker (WSOP). No, we are not laying down $10,000 and playing in the Main Event. While that is a bucket list item for us, we imagine fulfilling that dream many years down the road. No, we are lucky enough to be heading to Vegas in our role as ambassadors for Advanced Poker Training, the poker training site for which we also blog. APT is holding a WSOP Meet N Greet and they asked us to help represent the site. We did not have to think very hard before saying “hell, yeah!”.

We have been to Vegas a couple of times before and loved it. However, we’ve never been during the World Series of Poker. In planning this trip, we discovered that while the WSOP is in town most casinos suspend their daily tournaments. On our previous trips, The Venetian and the Aria have been our go-to rooms of choice. Both hold regular small stack (less than $200 buy-in) tournaments that we really enjoy. As we planned our current trip, we discovered that both are hosting tournament series this month alongside the WSOP. As we mentioned in our last post, we are currently facing the first college tuition bill for Paul’s older daughter. $1,500 (or even $500) buy-ins are off the table for this trip.

Low Stakes Tournament Options During the WSOP

There are plenty of options to play well-structured low stakes tournaments during the WSOP. For the purposes of this article, we define low stakes as anything at or below $200. If you are looking for such a game, here are your top five options:

5 Best Poker Movies of All Time

May 14, 2018May 14, 2018 Paul 2 Comments

Poker movies just don’t get it right most of the time. Poker is a fascinating game filled with great real life characters. Doyle Brunson, Stu Unger, Phil Hellmuth, Phil Ivey, Scotty Nguyen and Daniel Negreanu to name just a few. What’s even more amazing is that most small stakes poker rooms are filled with more of the same. Complex, interesting characters that can’t possibly be real. Only they are.

Despite such a rich landscape, there are precious few good poker movies. Sports like boxing, basketball, and baseball have produced a stunning number of good films. But poker seems to be resistant to the movie genre. There may be more good chess films than quality poker movies. There are a few nuggets out there, and we hope the recent release of Molly’s Game brings renewed interest, but it won’t take you very long to work your way through the entire poker oevre. We think these five movies are the best out there. And we’ll be watching and re-watching them until we can live our own poker travel dream.

5. Big Hand for a Little Lady

Big Hand for a Little Lady portrays the Western archetypal spin on poker with a side of comedy. The iconic American journey of a couple and their son moving west to buy a farm (of course) near San Antonio is interrupted by a poker game in Laredo (where else?). Meredith (Henry Fonda) is a recovering gambling addict who wanders into a, you guessed it, saloon. He extracts permission from virtuous wife Mary (Joanne Woodward) to watch a high stakes poker game. You can probably guess where it goes from there. Meredith enters the game, ends up putting the entire family fortune at risk. Then there is a big hand….and the “little lady” takes over when Meredith suffers a sudden attack.

Meet the Poker Pilgrims on Cardplayer Lifestyle

April 19, 2018April 18, 2018 Heather Leave a comment

The wonderful Robbie Strazynski of CardplayerLifestyle.com published an interview with us this week on his blog. Robbie founded Cardplayer Lifestyle in 2009. The site has since earned a reputation in the industry and among fans for being a top poker entertainment site. The site regularly posts interviews with poker personalities, poker strategy articles, poker op-eds, and engaging poker lifestyle pieces.

In the interview, Robbie asked us about our history playing poker, our favorite card rooms, and our plans for our trip. We really enjoyed interacting with Robbie and are thankful to him for exploring our site and sharing his interview.

Head on over to Cardplayer Lifestyle to read the interview in full!

Like this post? Want to learn more about our plans for our poker pilgrimage? Head on over to the sidebar and subscribe. We’ll let you know whenever a new Poker Pilgrims blog post goes live!

The Frugal Poker Player: 6 Tricks to Reduce Costs while Playing Poker

April 16, 2018April 15, 2018 Heather Leave a comment

Poker is a lot of fun (thus our grand plan to spend a year traveling the country playing poker). Poker can also be very expensive. Most players understand the importance of paying attention to your poker budget or bankroll to ensure that they are playing in games they can afford. However, many players overlook the importance of accounting for all of the other spending that goes along with playing poker. In order to maximize your poker opportunities, you need to reduce costs associated with playing, and travelling to play, poker. This is an area that you can not ignore. If you play your way to break even (or better) poker and do not account for these costs, you will quickly find yourself in the red.

So how do you reduce costs when playing poker? Here are 6 tricks to help you out:

Throwdown Thursday: Headphones at the Poker Table

April 12, 2018April 9, 2018 Paul Leave a comment

Headphones have become ubiquitous in our culture. Take a subway, and half the riders are plugged in. Walk down a city street, and cords are flapping in the breeze. Even attend a high school music performance, and you’ll see younger sibs with headphones firmly implanted in ears. (Although that final choice may reveal precocious wisdom). Headphone use at the poker table has become part of an archetype of a specific kind of player. We’ll label this breed “poker headphones”. Most, but not all poker headphones players are under 30 and wear them throughout their sessions along with sunglasses and a hoodie or ballcap.

Can these players not be alone with their thoughts? Must they desperately block out the comments of other players in order to think? Do poker headphones help or hurt focus? Debates have raged about the etiquette of headphones at the poker table and whether their use is beneficial. Norman Chad, the great poker commentator and wit, comes down firmly against poker headphones, throwing them into the same category as hoodies and sunglasses. However, many top pros like Phil Hellmuth and Phil Ivey, frequently wear headphones at the poker table.

In today’s Throwdown, we take on the poker headphones phenomenon. We have played tournaments both with and without headphones. Which is better?

Paul: I generally like poker players, but sometimes hate what comes out of people’s mouths. Short friendly interchanges allow me to think the best of everyone. Too much exposure to others’ insights makes me want to take up crocheting. Enjoying my poker session is as important to me as winning. Listening to Elvis Costello assures that I will enjoy my day, however the game plays out. Listening to a poker genius telling everyone else how they are misplaying hands assures I won’t.

Heather: Ah, the “I hate humanity” argument. Fair enough. However, I find that I get a lot of information from listening to others at the table. Not only through direct communications, but also from side banter with the dealer and with each other. I lose those insights about other players’ habits and their games if I am tuning out to the music of Hamilton.

Category: Poker