Took a big bad beat this morning, when I got up early to head over to the Rio to register for WSOP Event #51 and discovered to my dismay that the f-heads who administer the Rio have done it again, they maxed out at 2700 entrants as of Friday night around 11pm. There were a bunch of idiots sitting and sleeping in line in the registration room in the vague hope that, at some point this morning, Harrah’s was going to open up a few new tables to increase the capacity for the event. And while I’m sure they will eventually open up a few new tables in the event, there’s no effing way I’m going to sit around and wait for these donkeys who seem every year to find ways to muck up the administration of the WSOP. It’s amazing, really, how much they can never seem to get the WSOP even close to right, basically since the minute they moved it out of Binion’s a few years back.

Anyways, I considered my options for maybe 10 minutes, and one answer just seemed very clear, especially in light of the shitcocky experience I had playing cash for about 9 hours on Friday. I hopped in a cab, and within a few minutes I was at the Venetian, where I signed up for today’s Deep Stack Extravaganza event, a $560 buyin tournament that lasts two days, has a great structure and 50,000 starting chips. Really, it’s a significantly better tournament than the $1500 WSOP event today — I don’t think anyone can argue that — and while I freely admit that my preference would have been to experience the mystique and cache of the WSOP, all things equal — in the end it’s not a bad outcome for me. I’m hoping to get Chad to join me out there, so we can chop it when we get down to heads-up and piss some of our mutual readers off but good.

So that’ll be me at noon today. I’ll still be playing in my first poker tournament of the trip, but instead of donking it up against 3000 Mookie-winner types at the crowded, cramped Rio, I’ll instead be playing a much more skill-focused nlh tournament at what is probably the best poker room in Las Vegas.

Wish me luck, hatahs!