The best way to approach such an event is probably to realize that you're going to have to get through a ton of people and so taking risks too much from the beginning is probably not the best option. Survival is key in this tournament and looking for really good spots to pick up chips in, is ideal in comparison with random risk taking. Many people will probably be taking risks in the beginning thinking that 50,000 is just too many players to overcome and so they think that getting lucky and picking up a ton of chips early on is crucial to doing well, but I disagree and think you should certainly take advantage of people employing these strategies by playing good hands and trapping them in any way you could.

As this is really a one of a kind tournament that you may not see again for a very long time I think everyone who has the opportunity, should go out of their way to play this. If $200 is too much of a buy-in for you, PokerStars is running a multitude of satellites where you could win your buy-in for as little as $1 if not less or even Freeroll your way into it using other PokerStars promotions. I'm personally used to playing live tournaments where the buy-ins generally range from $5,000-$10,000 in main events and it's very rare to see a 1st prize of $2,000,000 in those, so I definitely plan on going out of my way to make sure I'm able to play this tournament for only $200.

I wish everyone the best of luck and see you at the tables!

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Coming into the event, I felt confident in my game and expected the field to be quite soft in the beginning. My first table was certainly a mix of different types of players, but certainly felt like it was on the softer side, and I was fortunate enough to do quite well there. By the time we were approaching the money in the middle of day 2, I noticed that the field has gotten quite a bit tougher and there wasn't going to be any more smooth sailing. I had a healthy chip stack for most of the tournament and was really short only 2-3 times. One very key hand that I remember was in a 3-way pot where me and Shaun Deeb were both chasing flush draws versus an obvious 2 pair. On the river, we both made a flush, but I made a higher one and scooped the whole pot being all-in. There were of course some other very important hands where I survived being all-in on the final table when I was short.

When we were three-handed, at one point I had about 50,000 in chips while both of my opponents had about 800,000 each. I really didn't expect that I could come back from such a deficit, but then while I was able to pick up some ante's and steal attempts here and there, Allessio knocked out Eric and we went heads up with me having about 200k vs his 1.6mil.

I was very excited at this point as I didn't even expect to reach 2nd, and also realized that even though I was short, my chances of winning weren't too bad and I tried to make the best decisions I could with what I was dealt. After I went on a nice rush and won the tournament, I felt a huge flood of joy at having finally won a WSOP bracelet which has eluded me for some years. This is also the best possible way I could have hoped for to start my summer and am now even more confident and looking forward to doing well in more tournaments!

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Photo courtesy WSOP