Las Vegas Summer Poker Report: WSOP is Still the King of Value

Now that the dust has settled on the World Series of Poker and basically all of the summer festivals in Las Vegas — the Venetian’s series is somehow still ticking — I thought I’d reflect on my own June trip to the desert. I played 13 tournaments at various locations around the city. I also logged about 12 hours in a few pot-limit Omaha cash games across a couple of poker-filled weeks.

There were certainly clear trendlines worth noting for poker players looking for value in the summer poker grind. For all its issues, the WSOP still dominates when it comes to poker tournaments as a pure dollar value proposition. The milestone satellites seemed to be another hidden gem. And if the best time to learn pot-limit Omaha was 10 years ago, well, the second-best time is right now.

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The WSOP Still Blows the Competition Out of the Water When it Comes to Value

The WSOP has its warts. Many of the dealers in the big no-limit events seem like they’ve never held cards before. The rake was almost 18% in the Colossus. And don’t even get me started on the parking garage.

But at the end of the day, the value you can get in these tournaments is just not even comparable to what’s out there at similar buy-in levels at the other properties.

Sure, there are times when being in a WSOP field bites you. I sat in for the $2,500 freezeout, and I had Joao Vieira on my left (I won zero hands in approximately two hours, if you’re wondering). He won the $100,000 bracelet event last summer. That’s probably not going to happen at a random Wynn tournament. Vieira will be chasing a bracelet in some WSOP event.

But by and large, the competition at the WSOP is just far, far softer than elsewhere. Sit into any tournament above $1,000 at the Wynn, Aria, or Venetian, and the regular-to-recreational ratio is just way higher. I played a $1,600 single-day no-limit tournament at Aria, and my table was basically all European regs. That’s just not going to happen in a $1,500 WSOP event unless you’re very unlucky or pretty deep in the tournament.

On the opposite tack, if you want to find the misreg capital of Vegas, just go check out the Wynn nightly $1,000 turbos. Not to say these people are necessarily playing great poker. They’re often tilted, irritable, and ready to gamble to see if they can spin up a big stack for a day-saver.

But they’re emblematic of events at the $1,000-or-higher level outside of the WSOP. They’re filled with players who came to Las Vegas to seriously grind poker. Joe Home Game mostly doesn’t play these.

Milestone Satellites Provide More Hidden Value

I’ve never been a big satellite guy, but over the past three years, I’ve dabbled in a few of the WSOP’s milestones. This is going to include some second-hand references as well, but all evidence seems to point to these being very high-value events.

From my own experience playing three milestones, they were all great. In 2024, I played two milestones to the WSOP main event, making it through on the second try. There were some decent players in the $2,000 milestone, but at the $1,000 level, many inexperienced players were in the field.

This year, I played a $2,750 milestone to the $25,000 PLO. I busted in about five hands, but the player who busted me had little clue how to play PLO. The rake was only about 6% too, from my memory.

Second-hand, I had multiple players tell me the $1,000 milestones to the $10,000 championship events are gold mines. One Vegas regular told me he played the $1,000 milestone to the PLO8 event, and here was his quote:

I’m not kidding, 90% of the field was drawing dead.

Friend of the program Dara O’Kearney also wrote about a planned recommitment to the satellite grind after his sources told him the milestones were very, very good.

PLO Remains a Refreshing Poker Oasis

Finally, I want to talk a little bit about PLO. I’m biased in many ways because PLO is both my favorite game and my strongest game. But I think there’s a lot of value in PLO that simply isn’t available in other formats, especially no-limit hold’em tournaments.

Again, I sit down at a $1,600 single-day at Aria and am surrounded by experienced players. Even in the $500 Colossus at the WSOP, I caught a guy running a complex backdoor check-raise barrel-off bluff on me.

I just don’t see these sorts of sophisticated plays at a similar level in many PLO events. The $600 PLO/NLHE mix was full of players who had no idea how to play PLO. Even in the $1,500, the level of play at many of my tables was what the kids would call mid.

PLO is in a bit of a sweet spot, in my opinion. It’s popular enough right now that many players are still trying it out and enjoying it. But it’s also not so popular that strong strategies have become commonplace the way they have in no-limit hold’em. I played a ton of PLO on this trip, and I just wasn’t getting consistently put in tough spots. Meanwhile, it’s hard to find a no-limit hold’em event these days that doesn’t have at least three or four competent players at the table.

If players are finding it tough in NLHE events, I still think there’s plenty of value in a switch to the great game of PLO.

Overall, the trip went well. I profited around $60,000 in tournaments before paying out investors and another $8,000 or so in cash games. And with the intel I picked up on the Vegas summer poker scene, hopefully I’m well-prepared to do even better next year.

Mo Nuwwarah

Deputy Editor

Mo has been reporting on the poker industry since 2013, excepting a foray into the sports betting space from 2021-2025. He's a regular in live tournaments and cash games at buy-in levels around $400-$2,000.