I wanted to take a moment and write about my experience at this years World Series of Poker. This will be more of a trip report so for reports on what happened and photos from the event check out the updates Paul Ellis and I have over at the Twitter Poker Tour website. This will be a multi-part blog post covering my WSOP Vegas experience.

A few months back I received an email from Paul (@coolwhipflea) saying that he applied for WSOP Media Credentials using the Twitter Poker Tour as the media outlet and me as a reference. He said he received an automated message that it would take about 10 days for the credential process and they would get back to him. I was very excited to hear what would come out of it because I have the utmost respect for Paul and his ability to convey poker action to people and this would be a great experience for him as both a blogger and a fan of poker.

Paul heard back from Seth Palansky at the WSOP right on schedule and he forwarded me the email saying that the credentials were approved, he was going to cover the 2010 WSOP for the Twitter Poker Tour! I couldn’t have been more happy for him, and I rushed home to tell my lovely wife the news. She, as expected, was excited and blurted out ‘Are you going to apply for credentials too!?!?!’. I had only given it a passing thought when Paul had originally applied. I mean, Paul’s the real talent, I’m just some dude that runs an online poker league, what value can I add?

It would obviously be a great experience for me as well, so I went ahead and submitted my application for credentials. After the roughly 10 day lag I received one of the best canned-response emails I’ve every received. Seth Palansky (WSOP Communications Director) informed me that I would also be covering the 2010 WSOP as a credentialed media member! I was floored, to be honest. As someone that remote railed the Main Event last year, getting updates via various twitter feeds and website updates I was going to be there in person for the action!

The next step in my WSOP adventure was deciding what days to travel out to Vegas. I had a few date ranges in mind and weighed all my options. I could go out for some of the preliminary events during a few weekends in June, or to the Main Event in July. I decided that if I am going to go, I should go for the Main Event. I already had vacation plans that coincided with the start of the main event so I made reservations for July 14th – 17th for my trip. These dates would coincide with Days 5, 6, 7 and 8. Day 8 is the day they will play from 27 players down the final 9 that will reconvene in November at the Rio and the Penn and Teller Theatre as the November 9 to crown a new 2010 WSOP Main Event Champion.

That’s it for now, stay tuned!