This summer was all about redemption after the absolute nightmare that was my 2024 World Series of Poker. I went 0 for 21 in live bullets playing my biggest WSOP schedule to date.
While it was a dream come true to play my first WSOP main event and reach day 3, it was otherwise a miserable stretch of time at the poker table. I was getting bad beat left and right, playing way too aggressively from the start, and hardly ever sniffed a dinner break. It sucked.
The series served as much-needed wake-up call and humbled me. I had come in hot after a series of victories to start my 2024 campaign, including winning a WSOP Circuit ring in Brazil. But I never adjusted to the WSOP field and paid for it.
Over the past year, I’ve gained a great deal of strategic insight and have had several close calls in large-field main events with $300,000 or more up top. I came in full of exploitative insight and was ready to play.
I expected to put up somewhere between $50,000-$100,000 worth of buy-ins. That’s pretty incredible considering that I was earning $150 a day to cover poker tournaments as a live reporter in 2022. Hell, I had to take two buses to and from the Horseshoe to South Point every day and put in a 12-hour shift five-to-six days a week back then. I’ve really come a long way.
In addition to taking much more time off to relax this summer, my strategy (for sub-$1,500 events) on day 1 is straightforward: fast play great hands, trap out of position, and underbluff and overfold against recreational players. In my first week of play, it worked out quite well.
I started my 2025 campaign, like many others, by firing the $1,000 Mystery Millions. While I’m not the biggest fan of the mystery bounty format, the fields are incredibly soft and it’s undoubtedly the easiest way to win a million dollars in Las Vegas. Fortunately, I only fired the event twice. Unfortunately, I busted close to the money both times and then took a day off to go shopping, get my house in order, and get a much-needed haircut.
I was planning to take Friday off but I had a bunch of friends playing the $1,100 Wynn Summer Classic turbo. While the field was incredibly reg-heavy, we were able to build up a quite formidable stack before losing a couple of flips at the penultimate table, finishing 13th for about $4,000. I say ‘flips’ lightly, as this guy in the big blind snapped my A-6 off from the small blind with Q-2 for nine blinds (66% of his stack) with a 20-big blind chip average. I left flabbergasted and, quite frankly, pissed.
After getting home from the Wynn at 5 am, I slept in and took it easy by the pool. Again, I didn’t plan on playing, but then I heard about a potential six-figure overlay in the $300 mystery bounty ($250,000 GTD) at the Golden Nugget. I also had friends there, so I played the final flight and ended up bagging a big stack.
I hardly had any time to sleep, as the restart was about seven hours after we bagged. When I arrived, the prospects were great. About 131 of us remained, with 106 minimum bounties ($300) and a $25,000 top bounty. Worst of all, it did not overlay!
With the majority of players unfamiliar with proper mystery bounty strategy, I was able to claim a $500 bounty with minimal risk. Later on, a guy open-jammed 25 big blinds from the cutoff with pocket deuces. I had 22 bigs and A-Q in the small blind. With about 80 players left, this was an incredible spot to chip up, cover the table, and make a run at the top prize and the bounties. However, the deuces held up, and I cashed out for a total of $1,175. I got out of there as fast as I could, which wasn’t very fast at all.
After nearly an hour, thanks to an unnecessarily long payout line, I went to the Horseshoe to fire the single-flight $600 Deepstack event and was able to sit down with 25 big blinds. I really wanted to start a bit deeper, but I didn’t have a choice given my late arrival.
However, I quickly took my 30,000-chip stack to nearly 100,000 in the first level, and we were off and rolling. I moved over to a table next to my friend Anson Tsang, and after about an hour, I got extremely fortunate in a set-over-set spot and chipped up to about 270,000. After dinner, I was able to get my entire stack in overbetting both turn and river for piles with K-10 suited on a 10-8-2-5-10 board, and became one of the tournament chip leaders. After bullying the bubble and winning some small flips against short stacks, I went on to bag a cool 1,205,000 – 18th in chips with 301 players left from the 6,090-player field.
I got home and could barely sleep. I had twice the chip average with a super-soft field and drew a phenomenal table with a ton of chips to be won. This was the dream spot, I was absolutely buzzing with excitement and couldn’t wait. Everything was lining up and I was ready to dominate. Only 300 players stood between me and a bracelet.
But then, I folded the entire first hour. Nothing was happening, and I couldn’t reasonably open or three-bet a hand. Players were falling left and right, but my chip stack began to dwindle. After about two hours, my 40-big blind stack was only worth 15 big blinds, and I was left wondering… how did I get here?
I chopped a pair of all ins, both of which I was ahead preflop, and then the blinds went up once again and suddenly I had 10 bigs. I then risked 2.6 bigs to win 7.7 with K-J against A-2 and couldn’t get there, leaving me with 6.5 big blinds. I moved to another table and was dealt the big blind immediately!
Everything was going wrong. I was left with 3.6 big blinds and had five chances to open, before looking down at J-3, J-3, 7-2, 7-3, 8-3. No good. I had to hope the big blind would give me something.
Lojack opened, the button three-bet jammed for 18 big blinds, and I look down at my hand. Two black queens. With 76 players left, if I could win this pot, I could be back in the thick of things with fold equity. I put in my remaining stack. The lojack snapped it off. He had aces, the button had A-J. Ace on the flop.
The dream was dead. So much hope and potential, only to basically blind out. I know I’ll be back and have better opportunities but it sucks knowing that I never really had a chance to play for it.
I collected $4,184 for my efforts, but I had too much energy to go home, and, after a fair bit of moping, regged the $200 daily deepstack and min-cashed for $405. Four cashes in five tournaments – quite the feat for someone who went 0 for 21!
Blaise Bourgeois a WSOP Circuit ring winner, poker journalist, and contributing columnist for Card Player. Find him on Twitter/X @BlaiseBourgeois.