I played in six poker tournaments this summer in Las Vegas. I busted all six.
Don’t worry; this isn’t a bad beat story! It’s also not a woe-is-me postmortem. It’s a reflection on what I learned and why, despite no cashes, I don’t regret taking all those shots in those half dozen poker tournaments.
I spent a total of five weeks in Vegas, logging over 200 hours at the cash game tables and banking a decent four-figure profit when all was said and done. Unlike the overwhelming majority of poker players who descended upon the city, I didn’t play a single hand of No Limit Texas Hold’em or Pot Limit Omaha (perhaps that’s a story for another article). Rather, every hand I played was in some sort of fixed limit mixed game poker variant. I played for stakes of $4/8 all the way up to $40/80.
I’ve always primarily been a cash game player. Yet, sprinkled throughout the second half of my trip were six tournament bullets – a $3,540 investment. That’s quite a chunk of change for my relatively modest bankroll, so I’m grateful that my good friend Poker Hall of Famer Eli Elezra was kind enough to take half my action 🙏. While that obviously limited the potential amount of money I could win, it also by definition would cushion the blow if I blanked.
Unfortunately, I did blank, and that kind of stings. That said, while I didn’t come home with a bracelet, a final table finish, or even a single min-cash to add to my Hendon Mob page (yes, as of February of this year, I finally got one!), I did come away with a number of important takeaways, and I’d like to share them with you.
1. Tournament Poker Can Be Beautiful
Over 1,500 poker tournaments took place during the World Series of Poker throughout Las Vegas. When selecting which ones I’d play, my choices were quite limited though. Let’s just say that I had some obvious reasons for putting together The Ultimate 2025 Summer Poker Schedule Mixed Game Poker Tournament Low Rollers back in late April.
The first tournament I tried my hand at was both the most expensive and most prestigious. My schedule just worked out that way. On quite the high from having just concluded a very successful Mixed Game Festival XI, I went into the $1,500 WSOP 2-7 Triple Draw event feeling as though the bracelet had my name on it.
You miss all the shots you don’t take.
First bracelet event in four years; third overall.
The only one I can play in (because it doesn’t stretch into shabbat, if I run deep).
Maybe THIS is the one.
Grateful to have the opportunity.
Let’s run pure and make good decisions. 🔥 pic.twitter.com/KAoBEZqouF
— Robbie Strazynski (@cardplayerlife) June 23, 2025
There’s nothing quite like playing in a World Series of Poker bracelet event. It’s something I had only done twice before. The buzz is incomparable. The feeling of “anything could happen; maybe it’s MY time!” — that dream very much burns within me.
Did it cost me? You bet! A pretty penny when you don’t make it into the money. But, oh, to just have that feeling! In a sense, you really can’t put a price tag on it.
Poof, (half of) $1,500 was gone just nine hours later, but I wouldn’t trade that opportunity for anything.
2. Tournament Poker Can Be Brutal
The thing about tournament poker – and I imagine this is something even more on point when competing in a No Limit Texas Hold’em or Pot Limit Omaha tournament – is that you can in principle play flawless poker for hours, and still end up busting out in spectacular fashion with nothing to show for your efforts.
While I didn’t play perfect poker over the course of my half dozen tournaments this summer, I know I played very well. Better than I’ve ever played before, as a matter of fact. Even in fixed limit poker variants though, one mistake – yours or your opponent’s – can mean the difference between building a stack or busting, especially as the tournament wears on. If and when one or two key spots don’t go your way, that can undo everything you’ve worked so hard for and decimate your chip stack. That’s unfortunately what happened to me on multiple occasions.
One of my favorite features of @RealKidPoker‘s vlog is the “Oopsie meter.”
Why?
Because there’s no such thing as playing perfect poker, even when you’re a huge lifetime winner and in the Poker Hall of Fame.
In other news, I busted another tournament and I spend too much on 🍨 pic.twitter.com/x9KERPObQh
— Robbie Strazynski (@cardplayerlife) June 27, 2025
3. Some Players Don’t Seem to Care About Money
Every so often you find yourself seated at a table with players who clearly have no idea what they are doing — maybe they’re more used to playing slots at Wildz online casino — and you can’t help but be happy about that, but also be left shaking your head…
Within a few minutes of late regging to take his seat at my table in the aforementioned $1,500 2-7 Triple Draw bracelet event, a “fun player” (let’s be nice 😉) began asking questions like “so, what exactly are the parameters for raising?” and “what do you mean aces are no good?”
One level later, after betting out on the river, that same player proudly turned over a straight to the 7 at showdown, got told by the dealer “straights are no good; they count against you” and his response was “well what ELSE do I need to know?!”
When he busted not too long thereafter, he walked away more dazed than upset, muttering to himself “well, that was a $1,500 lesson, I guess”.
He just as easily could have learned that lesson for a LOT less money, but I suppose paying a hefty premium wasn’t too big a deal. 🤷♂️
4. Mixed Game Poker Players Flock Together
I noticed a lot of the same faces playing in the smaller one-day three-figure buy-in tournaments around Las Vegas this past summer, and while some were locals many were fellow visitor/tourist faces I remember having seen in summers past. Regardless of the venue, walking into the tournament area always brought a smile to my face because I always recognized a lot of fellow mixed game poker lovers.
It didn’t matter whether it was a triple draw mix, a triple stud mix, a H.O.R.S.E., or a T.O.R.S.E., if there was a low-buy-in mixed game tournament being spread in Las Vegas this summer, people showed up… lots of the same people.
I can’t help but hope that this is something that properties around the city and outside of Las Vegas take note of. Players WILL show up if you spread low-limit mixed games and well-publicize a series of such tournaments! You’ve just got to spread them in the first place, and boom – the crowd of loyalists will come and patronize your establishment. It doesn’t always have to be Hold’em, Hold’em and more Hold’em with an occasional spritz of PLO.
5. There’s a Thin Line Between Momentum and Misery
One of my favorite places to play poker in Las Vegas is Resorts World; it has played host to seven of our 11 Mixed Game Festivals in the past. All the dealers there are superbly proficient when it comes to mixed games, which makes playing in a mixed game tournament there that much more of a pleasurable experience.
They staged a $400 H.E.R.O.S. tournament there this summer, and it’s one of the two I ran deepest in. Everything was going well, and I once again felt “this is the one”… until something went catastrophically wrong at a critical juncture.
I had 7A | 542 on fifth street in Razz, and my opponent’s board read XX | 974. I was leading the betting throughout the hand and couldn’t understand how or why he kept calling.
He got dealt a 3 on sixth street (I caught a meaningless 8); and suddenly the betting got capped. The river failed to improve my hand any further, and one more capped round of betting later I was suddenly left with crumbs as he revealed his hole cards: A2J. An audible “whoa!” escaped the lips of every player at our table. Utterly shocked (but not tilted), I had less than 2 big bets remaining after paying him off.
It STILL took the field an hour to eliminate me after that! So yeah, I’m damn proud of my overall performance! But what do I have to show for that relatively good run? Well, just that story, I guess. 🤷♂️
6. You Miss 100% of the Shots You Don’t Take
Even when my final tournament of the trip came around – the $240 R.O.S.E. at Orleans – I was still brimming with confidence. I had played well in all five of the previous tournaments I had fired at, despite going 0-5. I had always had plenty of chips to play with throughout each tournament until that “inevitable” moment came where I lost a big hand then summarily got eliminated shortly thereafter. So, here was my final opportunity to get a “summer saver” and still leave Vegas a (bigger) winner.
I ended up making another relatively deep run, finishing 32/145 players. Only 18 made it into the money though. A tantalizing almost (half of) $8K score for first remained well out of my reach.
I sent the unfortunate news to Eli and to my wife, and as I sat indulging in two scoops of Baskin Robbins goodness, the thoughts that eventually became this article started bouncing around my head.
Regrets? Nah… I’ll Be Back, and I’ll Score Big Next Time!
Yes, I could’ve skipped all six events and saved $1,770 (my half of the buy-ins). And yes, coming home with $3,270 in profits looks a lot more impressive (especially to someone “normal” — i.e., not a poker player — who is by definition results-oriented) than “just” $1,500 in profit.
But that’s not how tournament poker, or life, works.
Each tournament was a shot. A real chance to win (half of) $9K, $12K, $20K+. Why wouldn’t I take that shot?
Even after going 0-for-6, I’m not done with tournaments. Far from it. In fact, I’m incredibly proud of how I played this summer. I believe I made better decisions, more consistently, than I ever have in the dozens of tournaments I’ve played prior. That kind of growth doesn’t show up on a Hendon Mob page. But it matters.
Tournaments are a situation where it’s not as much that “everything needs to go right” as much as “as little as possible needs to go wrong”. Because I know that I overwhelmingly made great decisions.
I led out well. I raised well. I called well. I folded well. I know that my biggest current weakness is missing bets on the river. Oh well.
We’ll get ’em next time!
