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WSOP 2019 Big 50 Quick Review

For the WSOP 50th anniversary, they decided to include a $500 buy-in, 50 minute level, 50k starting stack, $1M 1st place guaranteed event. Of course, this is unheard of, and attracted a record breaking turn-out.

At the end, there were 28,371 entries with 17,790 unique players with a total prize pool of $13,509,435. Femi Fashakin took down the 1st place money of $1,147,449 after 4 days of play.

If you read my “how to prepare” article, you know that I pre-registered for this event online. I arrived the day before day 1D and after checking into the Rio, walked to the registration area at about 8pm. I walked up to the end of the Disney-like snake line near the counter, only to have one of the line workers tell me that the actual line continues all the way down the hallway.

“You mean after pre-registering online, I have to wait in this line?” I asked. “Yes.” was the answer. She told me the counter closes at 2am so I decided to let the line die down and wait in my room. When I returned at midnight, the line was about the same length. After waiting about 1.5 hours, I finally got to the front and the actual registration only took a few minutes.

The next day, I woke up a little late but was there about 30 minutes late to the 10am starting time. As the day continued, I lost some chips and when it was time to remove the 100 chips, this is what I had left. But the structure is so great, I was not worried.

At about 5pm, the player to my right finally got knocked out. He was a very friendly fellow so I was sad to see him go. When the new player sat down, I asked him how long he waited to get into the tournament. He told me that he got in line at 8am and just now finally got in. So he waited in line for 9 hours. Yes, 9 hours in line.

As dinner time approached, I started to look into my options. This year, the WSOP decided to allow the players to pre-order your food online. As you can see (left image), you simply text “WSOP” to 227466 to get the link (see middle) to go to their ordering website (right image).

Unfortunately, a few hours later, I also got knocked out and as I walked out, I noticed the line to enter the tournament literally looked like another 9 hours wait. Any thought of re-buying into the tournament went out the window.

On a side note, my charger for my phone broke so I used this Best Buy kiosk in the Rio to buy a new $20 charger (without USB cable). I’m glad they had it because otherwise, I’m not exactly sure what I would have had to do to get a new one.

While on the hunt for automation and technology, I saw this automated yogurt kiosk dispenser in the Rio towards the tournament area. I didn’t try it but I saw a repair guy fixing it so I suspect it might not be ready for prime time.

After playing some cash games, I had to return to LA with my tail between my legs. However, I am not finished with WSOP 2019. I will be returning for the Monster stack event. More reporting to come.