If Wichita is for Linemen...

...then Council Bluffs can only be for self-flagellation.

I entered Year of the Blogger with the stated goal of playing one of the $1500 NLHE events at this year's WSOP. In fact, given the emerging details of this summer's McAwesome WPBT Summer Classic 2007 (thanks, Falstaff!), I had everything laid out just dandy. Hit Vega$ for the WPBT, play WSOP Event #15, and sweat the Good Doctor Mondo in the $1000 Ladies event.

But alas, once a hamster gets on a wheel, you just never know what's going to happen. On a slow morning at work I read a thread over on 2+2 (which I can't link to at the moment), and everything changed in an instant. I went into this year willing to take $1.5k off my non-poker bankroll just to give it one shot. The way I figure it, my proper poker bankroll won't get enough play to actually build a buy-in this year, but I'm feeling good about my tourney game, and given good non-poker fortune the last couple of years, I can afford the beat.

That said, I'm not stoopid. Okay. Maybe I am. But I'm not unwise. Okay. Maybe I am. But I'm not unwilling to mitigate a risk, even if I'm foolish enough to take one in the first place. There we go. That nailed it. It hit me in the face like folding QQ pre-flop to a 3rd raised hammer. I may be willing to dump $1.5k tilting at windmills, but if I can spend that on three shots at the sterling silver ring, rather than one shot at the brass ring (or WSOP bracelet, as the case may be), why not take it? That is, because given time considerations, I'm looking at a $300 event and two $500 events, not even the circuit main event, because...well...because that's still a $5k buy-in, and I have to be back at work on the day it starts, anyway.

This means no WSOP for Mondo, though, if I don't make a serious cash whilst playing in the amber waves of grain. It also means no WPBT Summer Classic 2007 , since if I busto in Iowa, I won't be going to Vega$ this summer. The Good Doctor Mondo and I would wait for the Winter Classic instead, now that we've gotten quite used to subzero weather on the high plains.

Anyway, what few readers this blog has...I'm interested in your thoughts on this. Is Council Bluffs a +EV versus the WSOP? I know the weather is massively -EV, and there will be no drunken Pai-Gow at the Horseshoe for me this trip. It should be the softest circuit of all, given that the big rollers will be at the World Poker Open (Borgata) at the time and because....well...because it's freakin' Council Bluffs, Iowa.

And I say that meaning no disrespect to Iowans, or even those across the river in Nebraska, because I've been through there, and it's far far far prettier than the bare soul torturous landscape I spent five years in, in Cheyenne, WY. Yup.

As a side note, I seem to be pushing back half my 2007 goals with this decision, and not playing ring NLHE at all, but am finally starting to find success at STTs, and enjoying the pursuit. Still taking a few too many beats and most of my cashes are 3rds and 2nds, but I'm not losing any bankroll yet, having moved up to $11+1. Maybe a new goal?

Then again, I may just bag the whole thing until I can find a circuit event that's in a nice place, at a time of the year when the Good Doctor can come with, and ratchet up my live tourney stakes more slowly...