Jim Reid is a longtime lover of poker, a member of the PokerOrg Player Advisory Board, and host of the popular RecPoker podcast. His summer trip to Las Vegas included a moneymaking run in the 2024 WSOP Main Event; here he gives us the inside scoop on what went down...
Hey Gang, it happened! I played the Main Event at the World Series of Poker, and I cashed! I made close to the top 2% of finishers in the biggest live tournament in the world, my Hendon Mob profile has a sweet five-figure score on it, and I got to live out a dream that’s on the bucket lists of so many recs around the world.
What’s more, I did it with the help and backing of a fantastic group of people who gave me their support - not to mention their money - and I’m beyond happy that I was able to give them all a fun sweat and a decent return on their investments. Including me there were 36 members of ‘Team Jim’, including lots of micro-sweats for one percent or less; I was blown away by all the support.
For all those friends and supporters, and the recs around the world who dream of playing this unique tournament, here’s a look at how my Main Event story played out.
Day 1
Getting in some practice in the $600 Deepstack Championship.I'd played a few side events, but nothing really compares to the feeling of sitting down in the Big One. On Day 1 I started with 60,000 chips, got up to about 71k in the first couple of levels, and then just could not make a hand for the rest of the day. I found a few good bluff spots to win some small pots, but seemed to hover between 40-50k for the bulk of the day.
My plan was to play defensively, so I made one error with 
where I got trappy and won a small pot instead of a big pot. But, I only lost one biggish pot where I bluff-raised an aggressive player's c-bet and fired the turn, but gave up on the river (and I'm glad I did because they turned over for an overpair and I don't think they were folding river after calling the turn on J33J). It felt like a good spot in a vacuum, but it was the only hand I lost more than a few thousand chips, and that's the way it goes sometimes.
Other than those two hands I think the play was pretty standard and uninteresting. I just folded a lot of J4, 95, Q3, T4 kinds of hands all day. I saw a lot of flops with small pairs in late position or in the blinds, but did not often improve and just had to fold a lot and lose a lot of small pots with them. But, I did find a bag at the end of the day, and managed to take 30,500 chips - just about half my starting stack - into Day 2.
Day 2
And what a day that was! I ran my 30,500 up to 110K before the dinner break, then chipped down to 35K again with an hour to go, sitting between 15-20 big blinds for most of the last two levels.
Then, in the last hour of play, I went from 35K up to 182K! The hand I tripled up from 15 bigs to a decent stack was a limped pot with me in the big blind, and then I found myself check/cold 3-bet shoving a King-high flush draw on the flop multi-way for my last chips. I ended up hitting a king to win with top pair - not exactly how we drew it up, but it felt like a good spot to go big or go home.
I was moved to a new table after that and luckily I immediately got 
all-in preflop against and held, so I can't take much credit for that, although the guy told me afterwards that my sizing convinced him to shove, so that felt good.
And then on literally the very last hand of the night, got in preflop against 
to lose a chunk and wrapped the day at 128K, but good lord there were some close calls along the way.
Days 3 and 4
I started Day 3 with 128K at 2,500 BB, so about 50 bigs. It ended up being the second day in a row entering the final levels with 15 bigs, the second day in a row tripling up in the last two hours of play, and the second day in a row losing a big flip on literally the last hand of the night with - on Day 2 it was vs. , on Day 3 it was vs. 
. But I can’t complain about pocket queens - earlier in the night I was dealt and got it in against 
and preflop and spiked a Q in the window to triple up at a crucial point in the tournament.
I headed into day 4 with 207,000 little colorful betting discs at 8K BB, or about 25 bigs, and 23 spots short of the money. My plan was basically to fold to the money, and I did!
Shortly thereafter, with action loosening up a bit, I lost a huge flip with vs. but had the guy just covered, so I was left with 19,000 chips at the 8k BB level, so a little less than 2.4 big blinds.
Two hours later, I had spun those 19,000 chips into a towering stack of 765,000 or so! People were busting way faster than I expected, and the pay jumps were flying by. Soon, we had locked up $20,000, then we passed $30,000! At the end of the night, there were fewer than 475 players remaining, and me and my team had secured at least $37,500. Wow.
The table I was moved to for the last two levels was stacked with some of the best players in the world, there were three different camera crews there - it was nuts. I literally only played two hands that entire time, really prioritizing tournament life over upside.
I did get to ask Adrian Mateos if a hot-dog was a sandwich, though, so I'll always have that experience to recall fondly! But that table was stacked, and that's how I blinded down from having about 580K when I got there to 300K at the end of the night.
It had been a crazy four days, but my Main Event wasn’t over yet. Come back soon for part 2 to find out just how deep I managed to run.
Spoiler alert: I didn’t win it, but I played a key pot with the man who did!
