WSOP 2025 — 10 Tips to Make to Best Out of Your Experience

10 Tips for WSOP 2025

1. Arrive Early, Leave Late
   One mistake many players might make right off the bat is to fly overnight, arriving on the morning of or the day before.  You must keep in mind time zone changes – for example, those in Europe, Las Vegas is anywhere from 8 to 12 hours behind you, so you need to give your body time to adjust to the new sunrise and sundown times. Assuming you can arrive the day before and quickly adjust, it could be an error if you go deep on day 1 and become overly tired.  On the flip side, you need to make sure you have a buffer to get to the airport after your visit, so if there is a chance you could be playing the day you leave, try to book a later flight.  If you can’t – fly out the next day.
2. Create Your Schedule with Plan B’s
   Here’s hoping that every tournament you play you run deep, but it just won’t happen for every event you play. While you are building your ideal schedule, make sure you think of plan B for multi-day events if you bust early, or run deep. If you are going to make the most of your trip, research other events to play – possibly at other casinos.  Las Vegas hosts plenty of tournament action in June knowing that the poker players are coming for the WSOP 2025, and there is fantastic action at several hotels – so don’t ignore them as you build your plan.
3. Reserve Accommodations Accordingly
   Are you exclusively playing at Paris and the Horseshoe? Or are you going to try events at the Wynn, the Venetian, or the Golden Nugget?  Think about your home base when you go to book your hotel, keeping in mind how you are going to get to and from each of the events.  Do you have a plan B in your schedule that’s at a different hotel? Can you get to it easily, knowing the Strip is busy and rideshares are going to be delayed picking you up?  Is budget a consideration as well?  Are you open to hopping from one hotel to another? Look at your schedule and pick hotels that make sense for your plan, so you don’t end up having to run in the desert heat!
4. Make a plan for Food and Drinks
   Scope out each hotel and know where the restaurants and food courts are in relation to the poker rooms you are playing at. The worst feeling in the world will be to arrive to play, and then only have minutes to locate a place to grab food before you have to rush back. In addition, are there supermarkets close by to the spot(s) you are staying at where you can buy groceries to help reduce your costs in the hotels (food on-site isn’t going to be cheap) and to make sure you don’t have to wait in huge lines while on break. Do your events start at 10am, 12pm, or mid-afternoon? That will impact on what you need to eat beforehand, and potentially what you may want to have on you while in the poker rooms. Also make sure you plan sufficient fluids and food with you at the table – are you a water drinker, or an energy drink person? Do you need to have a snack every few hours and if so, what packaged foods can you have with you to ensure you don’t get hungry and distracted at the table while you play? Have this with you in the poker rooms and make sure you are stocked up in your hotel room or AirBnB place before you start out every day.
5. Walk the hotel and poker floors BEFORE playing
   Can’t stress this one enough, but reviewing the map and layout of a hotel on a website is NOT the same as walking the floor. You can get lost easily in these mega resorts if you do not know your way around beforehand, so make a point on the day you do arrive to scope out each hotel (if possible) and visualize the path(s) available to you to get from your accommodation to the poker room, to the washrooms, and to food and drinks. The bathroom one is especially important as the washrooms nearest the poker rooms will be extremely busy on break – so can you find one further away that won’t be as busy?  Knowing the landscape of the hotel beforehand will aid in your pursuit of relief!  Knowing exactly where you need to go to get to your seat will reduce your stress and prevent you from rushing to the hall because you took a wrong turn and got lost.
6. Review structures
   This one isn’t done enough but take a few minutes to review the structure sheets of the events you are playing at least the day before.  Are levels 30 mins, 60 mins, or longer? Do they break after each level, every 2, or every 4? How long are the breaks and when is the dinner break?  Are there other events playing that will have a similar dinner break?  How many levels are they playing per day and when do you expect to finish for the night?  When is the restart the next day? If they play to win, how long did the tournament take last year? All these little things could help you ensure you have a solid plan that won’t cause you to miss a start time or be exhausted the next day.
7. Map out how you will be paying and registering
   Registering for events should be much simpler this year at the WSOP given you will be able to do this right in the WSOP App – but if you are playing in other events, this may not be an option, so make sure you understand how to play the events you want to play. Bring with you as much money as you will need each day, and nothing more – if don’t want to lose all your money because you lost your bag now!  Also understand when registration is open – is it 24 hours, or does the window close at a certain point? Try to pre-register where your schedule permits – in other words, if you are playing in a multi-day event, don’t register for an event the next day and can’t play if / when you qualify for day 2.
8. Structure your dinner arrangements
   Dinner breaks at the WSOP can be the most chaotic time for a poker player knowing they have a set amount of time to eat, relax, and recharge – but so will hundreds of other players. If you did your homework and mapped out a plan for dinner every night that could include groceries from a supermarket and you packed a dinner, or you have a friend not playing getting food – whatever it is, know what that looks like before you start play. The worst situation you could be faced with is unable to source dinner quickly enough and then you must go back playing on an empty stomach. Packing water and snacks will help you manage during play, but unless you bring a meal with you, you will need to find dinner or go hungry.
9. Create morning routine
   Get in a habit of doing the same thing every day during the series – the best way you can get your body to give you everything you need is to build a routine in the morning. Try to get up at the same time and do the same things every morning – whether that’s to workout, go for a swim, walk through the hotel, whatever it is, the more normalcy you build within yourself, the better your mind and body will be to battle on the felt. Having variable times for when you wake up could put you in a position where you sleep in on the morning of an early start, causing you to rush out and not be in the right mind set to start your tournament.
10. Remember to Enjoy
    Take time to enjoy and appreciate what you are doing and where you are.  The World Series is a spectacle of poker that is not matched in any other live poker stop around the world, so you need to take time in your day to be appreciative of everything you see and hear around you, and it should be good to reset your mental state especially if things aren’t going bad.

The WSOP 2025 truly is something that every aspiring poker player needs to experience at least once in their lifetime, so when the opportunity is upon you, you must take advantage of it and make the most of it. Given the logistics of where the event is, and how many other people will be in attendance, planning is critical to the success of your individual trip. 

From your flights to your hotel or AirBnB, to how you will get from your bed to your seat at the table, and how you plan for food, all of these little details are things that if mapped out beforehand, can make you look like a veteran of the WSOP and be relaxed and ready to go when the cards go into the air!