Will probably be there toward the end again. Watching the final table streams for a month first really builds on the anticipation, and I feel as if I have a skill edge arriving fresh after others have been there a while.

If they do tag team again, would love to partner up with others.

…..urnaments/

It’s heeeeeeeere.

My initial NLHE-related thoughts:

• Tag team is much earlier this year, and there is a $10K and a $1K. As much as I wish the TPE meetup were at the end of the series, if tradition holds true, I recommend holding the meetup on 3 June.
• There’s a nice low-roller stretch that weekend, with the $333 online event, Colossus III (why can’t they just call it the Colossus every year?), and $1K tag team.
• The Giant has 4 Day 1s, each Friday starting on 9 June. The structure is pretty shallow, but it’s a $365 bracelet event so what do you want? 20-minute levels that start at 7pm and run till roughly 2am. The nice thing is people can get into town Friday, check in to their hotel, and still get to this event. (Late reg ends at roughly 10pm, at which time you would have about 20 bigs ;))
• The Marathon on 12 June is a clever $2,620 event with 100-minute levels, but it still breaks at the end of each day. Shouldn’t a true marathon run all night, with the winner collapsing and dying at the end? In all seriousness, I think there’s a lot of value here compared to other midweek events.
• There’s a seniors (50+) and a super seniors (65+) again. Maybe next year they will have a 40+ junior seniors event. If a 22-year-old whippersnapper (or Marc Alioto with a fake ID) wins the Main, expect just that to happen in 2018.
• There are 2 bounty events. The first is 20 June and a “super turbo” (looks like a hyper turbo to me) with 20 minute levels. $1K with $300 bounties. The second is 26 June with a normal structure. $1,500 with a $500 bounty.
• There are 3 online events: the aforementioned $333 one, a $3,333 high roller one (on 1 July, with the same awful awful structure), and the “classic” $1K on 7 July.
• The newer popular events (Millionaire Maker, Monster Stack, Crazy Eights, One for One Drop, Little One for One Drop) are all back and at similar times compared with last year.

Other thoughts:

• Flights are relatively cheap but not as cheap as last year. Of course this can be location dependent.
• Politics aside, the dollar is much stronger than last year, so that could discourage international players.
• Hotel rooms are even higher than last year’s all time highs. I’m thinking about going to Tahoe this winter to put some play on my card in the hopes it lowers my rates. Otherwise I might finally come to my senses and not stay at Rio.

I may go the first weekend in June, but I’m most likely to attend the first half of July again, playing some combination of Crazy Eights, 3 July $1K, 5 July $1,500, 7 July $1K online, and the Little One for One Drop, although last year this field was very tough because pros who busted the main seemed to play it. Definitely recommend Day 1A if you do that one, but don’t expect degens taking 1 final shot at a bracelet.

Hope this analysis is helpful!