Better Things to Do Th...

Saturday, July 5, 2008

Better Things to Do Than Play the ME

By Ed Sevillano

If you got lucky this year and won a seat online for the Main Event but haven't bought in yet, it's not too late to take the money and run. Here a few things that you might be better off doing with your newfound cash.

Walking through the Rio on any of the Day 1's, it becomes painfully obvious that most of the field has no idea what they're actually doing. It's a $10,000 buy-in event, yet you still see things that don't belong in a $10 tournament online. If you feel at all that you may fall into this category, you need to reevaluate and come up with a new plan.

$10,000 is a lot of money and, in today's economy, it becomes that much more valuable. If you're like millions of people out there, you might have some credit card debt. Problems with debt run rampant and have even intensified over the past few years because so many people are spending more than they earn. Just a few hundred here and there and all of a sudden you might find yourself in the hole.

If you are already in that hole, then use that stack of high society to help get you out. You have no business playing in such a huge-buy-in event hoping that you might make a big score. Chances are you won't and at the end of it you will feel sick to your stomach after realizing that you could have put that money to better use.

If you're the proud parent of a beautiful child, it may behoove you to throw that money into a college fund for your spawn. As a good parent, it is your responsibility to offer your child the best chance in life. This includes making sure that you push your child to be the best they can be and get the best education they can get.

So many kids reach the age of 18 and their parents have no plan to help them get through college. Some parents have the mind-set that it should be the child's responsibility to come up with their own funds and, even worse, some parents just don't care what happens.

At the end of the day, you might see returns on that $10,000 that you could have never imagined. Put that money into a college fund and if you invest it wisely, you might give your kid a real opportunity in life they might not have had if you had lived your dream of playing the Main Event.

Finally, everybody knows the real money is in the cash games. Maybe you didn't get so lucky winning that Main Event seat. Maybe you're actually a good player.

Instead of sinking what might be a huge chunk of your bankroll into one tournament, spread it out. Tournament poker is extremely high variance. Play some cash games, play some Sunday majors online. Find what game you're best at and stick to it. You might find in a few months that you have doubled, tripled or even quadrupled your money. The sky is the limit if you make some big scores!

Before you go to the Rio and plunk down that stack of hundos, take a step back and ask yourself if it really is the best use of that money. If there was ever a time for you to be brutally honest with yourself, it's right now.