Value Hunting at the WSOP

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I recently got home after spending another full summer in Vegas. It was my third profitable trip in a row. In fact, I have never had a losing trip due to tons of run good as well as the fact that I try to avoid playing with good players. Instead of bracelet hunting, my goal during the summer was value hunting. Here’s how it went.

My plan was to play small stakes tournaments with buy-ins less than $300. These fields contain many experienced live players who are usually not willing to adapt to new poker strategies as well as inexperienced tourists who just got bored at the blackjack table and wanted to try that poker thing they saw on TV that one time.

One of the first games I played was the $200 Wynn daily. I targeted this game because of it’s unbelievably low rake. It included a $100 add-on and they only took a little over $30 out for expenses. This was essentially a $300 buy in with around a 10% rake. The only problem was that these players did not fit either of the profiles I usually see in small stakes games. This was the first time I’d experienced the over aggressive players from overseas. These guys were raising a ton of hands and basically running over the table. Luckily for me, I was card racking and was the table chip leader when this hand went down. An over aggressive German guy opens to 2bb from a 70bb stack. I have 100bbs and 3-bet him to 5bb with KK. He thinks for a moment and then ships his whole stack in with AQs. I call and am left with 30bbs after I lose. A few hours later I bust. That sucks, but this is the definition of value hunting. You’re just not going to see those kinds of mistakes in higher buy-in WSOP events.

My roll for Vegas was only $3000 so I knew I could not take many more hits like that. I decided to play the $125 Aria dailies and finally saw some success. I final tabled 2 of the next 5 tournaments I played there. These players fit more of the profile I was looking for. Most of them just wanted to see flops and try to hit a hand.

In the first game, I could not get anything going and was down to 10bbs at one point. A guy shoved for his last 2bbs and got 4 callers. When it got around to me, I shoved my last 10bbs with A3o. Everyone folded except for the shortie who had KQo and I held. After the hand, guys were complaining that they had folded small pairs and better aces.

Later, I moved to a table with the chip leader and got short again. I’d been tight all night due to a lack of spots. Whenever I did get it in, I had something decent. The best hand of the trip occurred when I was down to 2bbs from MP. I shoved into the chip leader’s BB. He must have had at least 60bbs. It folded around and he went into the tank. He said he’s seen how tight I’d been and that I always had a good hand. He showed 83o and said “I cant call.” Now this is the type of value hunting I’m talking bout. I showed him 55 and praised him for his sick soul read. Thanks to his ludicrous fold, I made the final table, but unfortunately busted 9^th.

In the second final table at the Aria, I had a big stack the entire time. I don’t remember many hands from this one, but what I will never forget is having the guys from TPE and guys I’d met through Thinking Poker come out to rail me at the final table. This was a $125 daily and I had poker pros and even a famous actor on my rail at 2 AM. They brought me TPE gear to wear which really made my night. The blinds got pretty high and we agreed to chop. I got a little added value by giving up about $300 in equity for a $565 WPT seat that none of the others would be around to play. On top of this, I made enough money to freeroll the rest of the summer.

I won’t go into details on the other tournaments I played, but I ended up final tabling another one at Planet Hollywood and chopping one at Binion’s on my birthday. These players made similar mistakes to the ones I’ve already described and this is where value comes from. As much as we all think we’re bosses, the money in poker comes from your opponents making more mistakes than you. As long as you play to the best of your ability and keep improving, you will make money from those who make glaring mistakes and have no interest in getting better. If you want to get value from players like these, consider registering for tournaments that do not award bracelets.