It is now two weeks until I leave for Vegas for my World Series Of Poker adventure. Some of you may be curious about what I’ll be up to, so I shall now attempt to explain.

Will you be on TV?
Depends on whether or not they decide to televise my event, which is very early in the tournament.

What do you mean, “your event”?
Yes, there is the giant tournament that ESPN and the rest of the media gives great attention to – the “Main Event”, which takes places over a number of weeks, attracts thousands of players, and offers a prize of millions of dollars to the winner. I am not playing in that event, mainly because I don’t have $10,000 for the buy in.

So which event are you playing in?
I will be playing in Event #3, the Limit Omaha Hi-Lo Split tournament.

Omaha?
Yep. Omaha.

The games you see regularly on TV are based on Texas Hold ‘Em – each player gets two cards for themselves, and has to make the best possible hand with any combination of the two in their hand and the five community cards that come up on the table. Omaha Hold ‘Em is similar, except each player gets four cards and must use exactly two of them in a given hand. “Two from your hand, three from the board.” Always.

What’s the “hi-lo” part mean?
It means that for any given hand their can be two winners who split the pot – one with a high hand (the typical rankings apply, with a royal flush being tops), and a low hand, where the wheel (A-2-3-4-5) is the best possible hand. Here’s the catch – you don’t need to use the same two pocket cards for both possible hands, so it’s possible for a player to “scoop”, or win both hands of the pot, with the same hand. Scooping is how one wins this particular brand of poker.

Uhhh. . .sure. Whatever. Gonna do anything else while you’re out there?
I hope not. This event is scheduled for three days and usually attracts around 800 players. I hope to be spending the majority of my time on the event. In the unlikely and unfortunate event that I bust out early, I’ll probably just hang by the pool or in the casino, playing cheap blackjack and drowning my sorrows in free booze.

You know you want to come with me now, don’t you.