The first critical decision that every poker player needs to make before coming to the WSOP is where to stay during the five week poker marathon, and this bit of planning is actually somewhat tricky to sort out. It’s also perennially interesting to see what options people choose.

One classic formation is the “WSOP house,” in which a posse of poker playing friends piles into a furnished five-plus bedroom house in, say, Henderson that comes equipped with a swimming pool and a ping pong table.

When I participated in this type of venture for the 2006 World Series, there were five people in our house paying rent but, at any given time, there was also an average of five or more girlfriends, relatives and visiting acquaintances hanging around. Often, these McMansions will house eight or more young poker players and the number of guests multiplies accordingly.

As someone who values solitude and privacy to a large degree, living in this kind of setup turned out to be a mistake of some magnitude for me. I was good friends with my four other housemates (and most of their girlfriends and relatives too, for that matter), and we are all actually still good friends, but I do not have too many fond memories of that house or that summer. The idea of hosting a beer-pong tournament in the place I am staying and trying to relax during poker tournament downtime is loathsome in retrospect.

As a result, I am always amazed when someone informs me that they are voluntarily subjecting themselves to this type of arrangement. Even if I was a highly social, alcohol-consuming type of guy, I can’t think of many actual advantages to living with this many people during a period of time when concentration, relaxation and settling into some kind of daily balance is of paramount importance. Similarly, I don’t really like dining with large groups of people. I think that as the size of a group gets larger, the lowest common denominator gets lower: One becomes forced to settle on little lifestyle choices in order to accommodate everyone in the party.

Another popular housing option is to stay at a casino hotel/resort, and I know of a few young “online” players who have actually decided to stay at the Rio, where the WSOP is being held for the fifth year, for the duration of this poker odyssey. The Rio is offering a very affordable room rate this year, and although I haven’t heard anyone express regrets about this choice yet, I am eager to see how that sentiment evolves as we get deeper into the Series.

I consider the Rio in particular to be an awful casino in terms of the way it’s laid out and designed, and the sensation I get whenever I walk through the casino part (something I try to avoid–the actual tournaments are held in the convention center, a safe distance away), I am reminded far less of Ipanema and Copacabana than I am of a cruise ship in hell.

A friend of mine stayed at the Bellagio during the ‘07 and ‘08 Series, and even though it’s a hotel where I enjoy staying, I think a five-week stretch there would be unhealthy for me in a variety of ways, even if I could afford it (his bill ventured well into five-figure territory both years). There are so many ways to become jaded, distracted, disheartened, and debauched during this Series, and staying at the Bellagio or a similarly nice luxury casino hotel/resort majorly increases the chances of my falling into one of those psychological pits, not to mention the actual casino pit, which destroys more lives and poker bankrolls than any other single “leak” I can think of.

Last year, I stayed with my friend Owen Crowe at an apartment in the Panorama Towers, a very short distance from the Rio itself and a popular high-rise residence for poker players in general. The lady we rented from was mostly weird and uptight, harboring a strange affinity for cheap drugstore air freshener and an unrealistic phobia of cigarette smoke and her ex-husband. The coffee machine in the apartment was some fancy bullshit contraption that was designed to grind the beans and brew the coffee at the press of a button, but which never worked correctly and instead left a mess of caked-on grinds and muddy water every time I attempted to use it. Most days, I got in the car (never a desirable option before consuming caffeine) and went to Starbucks before the tournament.

Our landlady also apparently didn’t believe in curtains that properly covered the windows, and the rooms high up in the sky were constantly affected by sunlight early in the morning, preventing even one good night of sleep. Crowe, a much deeper sleeper than I am, made the final table of a prelim event and made the final two tables of the main event for a very profitable summer, while I managed to score tiny cashes in two small events, a terrible WSOP result.  Also, despite having relatively few suicidal thoughts in general, I hated the isolated way the balcony in our Panorama condo was constructed, and whenever I was out there smoking, I had to resist nearly constant thoughts of jumping onto the bus depot that our apartment overlooked.

As a result of the Panorama’s proximity to the Bellagio and the Strip, there was also this artificial, nagging desire to do something and a feeling of emptiness whenever it turned out there wasn’t really anything worth doing.

Here now, in my fifth year in Vegas, I am finally content with the apartment I secured, again with Crowe, who is one of the few people I can get along with for extended periods of living and traveling together. We are in one of Las Vegas’ generic gated communities, 15 minutes northwest of the Rio. Critically, the place is properly equipped as a “vacation rental” with plenty of utensils, paper products, a simple Mr. Coffee machine (there are even two mason jars filled with coffee filters), a reliable wireless internet connection and a good cable-TV hookup.

The twenty minute drive to the Rio each day presents a good opportunity to clear my head, listen to music in my car, and there is a bagel place on the way that compares favorably to some of the New York spots I remember fondly. The management company we rented from is efficient and responsive, and the overall vibe here is far more stress-free (so far) than any of my previous housing  experiences at the WSOP.

I have a singular goal for this year’s WSOP–to make money–and I think this setup gives me the best shot of obtaining that goal.

All that said, there is a long way to go. Something weird happens to time at the World Series of Poker–it becomes unnaturally compressed–and after five days in town and only having played two events, it already feels like I’ve been here for several weeks. Still, there is a uniquely energized feeling that I am overcome by each year here, and it has totally erased the apathetic, wan feelings towards the WSOP that I was dealing with during May.

Tomorrow is the $1,500 six-handed NL event, my third opportunity to accomplish my goal for this summer, and even if I bust out on day one like I did during the first two events, I will enjoy the bagel with cream cheese that I munch on during the ride down to the Rio.