Everything you need to know about tournament poker

Have you wondered, friends, what preparation it must take to be a WSOP champion? To win a coveted gold bracelet? What mastery it must require?

Here's what it takes:

On Saturday afternoon two days ago, Matt Perrins sat down at 5pm and played his first ever hand of Deuce to Seven No Limit having watched roughly half an hour's worth of YouTube videos on the game. Two days later he has now been crowned a WSOP bracelet winner, beating a field of 275 to join his best friend Jake Cody as the second UK player to win a WSOP bracelet this year.

Now I can't say for sure if this kid is a fast-learning genius or a generally adequate player who hit a good run of cards, but I have a guess.

Given all the hype, it's hard to dispel the notion of WSOP champs as an elite club of poker experts. This is laughable. Poker tournaments are lotteries; the good players get two tickets and everybody else gets one.

Of course, a lot of experts win bracelets. That's because experts enjoy a fat payday like anyone else, and a lot of them play these events. But if you divided this year's winners into guys who could make a consistent living at poker and those who couldn't, I expect you'd find a distribution that's only barely skewed from the tournament field as a whole. If you're somewhat aggressive and not a complete idiot, you're in the hunt.

And yet Caesar's Entertainment (formerly Harrah's) keeps the lucrative myth alive, and absolutely fleeces players for the duration of WSOP, with respect to service, rake, and comfort. For discerning players, it's a tradeoff...are the suckers who show up at the Rio bad enough to justify playing there?

For me, it's a close call. I didn't set foot in the place last year, but this year I'm giving it a shot. The rake is absurd and the dealers mostly inept, but you can't say there's not action.

And there are also laughs. Like the guy hawking self-published books in the hallway, with a cover endorsement from Jerry Yang.

Who's Jerry Yang? He's the celebrated world champion from the 2007 Main Event. Now I can't say for sure if Jerry is a great player who got his due, or a terrible player who got lucky...oh wait, yes I can.

Off to the Rio for me. Adios, amigos.