Plotting a Getaway

Was sincerely contemplating making a run over to Cherokee early next month to play in one of the World Series of Poker Circuit preliminary events, but I’m not sure it’s going to work out schedule-wise. Even if it doesn’t, the WSOP-C now comes to Harrah’s Cherokee multiple times a year, and so I’m sure there will be another chance before long to go.

The World Series of Poker Global Casino Championship is running there from August 4-16. Here is the schedule.

The idea of making the trip got me thinking about how infrequently I’ve played live poker of late, never mind tournaments. That would necessarily put me into a certain category of player, say, in a WSOP-C event or one of the lower buy-in events in other tournament series (including the WSOP) -- the player for whom the tournament is a relatively unique occurrence, not part of a longer “grind” or more involved commitment to the game.

In fact, that category is a fairly big one -- probably the biggest by a decent margin, as far as the lowest buy-in tournaments go. In other words, at any given table in (say) a $365 event at Cherokee next week, there will be several seats occupied by folks for whom the buy-in level and status (for want of a better word) of the event is about as high as they’ll ever play.

Such players necessarily approach such tournaments much differently than do those occupying the other seats for whom it’s small change, or just one of dozens (or even hundreds) of events they’ll play over the course of a year. From a strategic standpoint, then, dividing everyone into one of the two major camps -- regs and recs (you could call them) -- would be an important first step to make when it comes to player profiling and reads.

We’ll see -- I may be able to get off the farm for a day or two yet. Would be fun to try to shovel some chips instead of stalls, even if only for a short while.

Photo: Visit Cherokee, NC.