When 888poker added Chris Moorman to their stable of ambassadors they added easily the most decorated online poker tournament player ever. He’s also won over $4 million on the live felt and has played the WSOP Main Event a number of times, cashing once, and he’s seen his fair share – and made his fair share – of mistakes along the way.

On Monday, Day 1C of the 2016 WSOP Main Event, roughly 4,000 players will take their first step towards a November Nine run and a million dollar score. Moorman, who is the only player to win more than $15 million in online tournaments, knows that for many players just playing in the Main Event is a goal, but he’s happy to share some insights into how to turn a bucket list check mark into a potentially big payday.

Many amateur players believe that adding chips to your stack and ending the day as a chip leader or near the top is the sole goal on Day 1. Moorman thinks that’s only half true at best and believes players should do their best to protect their stacks as much as possible.

“Winning X amount of chips is not nearly as good as losing X amount of chips is bad,” said Moorman. “With the huge starting stacks compared to the blinds, players tend to speculate too much on long shot hands which tends to put them in tougher spots than they are used to.”

With roughly 70% of players advancing to Day 2, Moorman recommends tightening up and playing a fairly straight forward style to make sure you bag up chips and move on as part of the 70%.

“To avoid this problem, I think it is smart to play solid ranges in general on Day 1 unless you are up against particularly weak opposition,” said Moorman.

Players will be scattered throughout three or four different rooms on Day 1C. Each room however will have tournament clocks posting how much time left in the level, the current blinds and maybe something that throws players off: average stack.

Many players use the average stack calculation to gauge how they’re doing in the tournament and Moorman believe that’s a mistake – one he’s often making himself.

“I’ve been guilty of this myself. It is very easy to not see the bigger picture in the Main Event, especially when your table rarely breaks on Day 1,” said Moorman. “If one player is winning all of the pots and you can’t get anything going yourself, it can be incredibly frustrating and it can easily start to feel irrelevant to yourself that you still have over 50bb and plenty of play in your stack still when the majority of your table has around 100bb for example.”

Moorman says he’s seen players become impatient as other players build stacks leading to bad decisions. The 888poker pro recommends ignoring that number altogether and focusing on the number of big blinds you have left – not how your stack compares to the average in a room of 3000+ players.

While the Main Event is made up of amateur and recreational players, the pros still come out in droves. Some players are happy to see a top level pro take a seat at their table as it presents a chance to at least go home with a story about playing with one of the game’s best while some also panic at the thought of having to test their mettle against a player whose Hendon Mob page includes six or seven-figure scores. Moorman believes there’s no need to panic and that amateurs actually might have it better than they recognize, at least early on.

“Amateurs actually have an edge in the short term because if they are unknown to me. They have a ‘wildcard’ factor and I will not be sure on their strategies immediately,” said Moorman. “I think they can use this to their advantage by playing unpredictably as long as they don’t move too far outside of their comfort zone.”

in past years Moorman has seen the nervous amateur turn into the over-confident table captain and advises against that.

“It’s important that they don’t have ego though and try to show bluffs or moves they are making though as this will no longer keep me or any other big name pro guessing and will give away too much info about their strategies,” said Moorman.