Post by jdaddy on Dec 21, 2007 12:19:43 GMT -4
Source: The Offical World Poker Tour Magazine
How to be a... SATELLITE SUCCESS
Specialist Andy Holt offers his guide on how to succeed at satellite tournaments and win your way through to the major events.
Satellite play can be highly profitable, and is one of poker’s hidden treasures that we can all enjoy. I say this because satellites are passed over by many skilled players, who don’t see them as a good use of their time. Having qualified my way into many major online events, I believe that it’s a great investment of time to learn how to consistently beat satellites. And I have a few observations and strategies that everyone can use to help them play satellites profitably.
First and foremost, you have to think beyond the short term. For example, limiting yourself to three $22 + $2 attempts to satellite to the Bodog 100k is a bad idea. Although spending much more than that would be more than the cost of buying into the event itself, if you feel that you have an edge and you are comfortable playing, individual results should not determine how many times you play.
You simply can’t be limiting yourself and giving up a good thing just because you didn’t win a satellite right away. This is a mistake that I see many players make, and it really limits their potential.
One of the great things about satellites is that, if you succeed with them, they enable you to play in tournaments that your bankroll can’t normally afford. For example, if you have $3,000 and you want to play in the PokerStars 500k, you simply can’t buy in directly. But if you can satellite your way there, you will be playing out of your comfort zone, with more pressure to perform well in the face of skilled opposition. This can do wonders for your tournament game, and your general poker game as well.
Playing in big buy-in events can be very rewarding, just because of the invaluable experience you gain playing against tougher competition. If you can pick up that experience through satellite qualification, then when the time comes that you can genuinely afford to play in the big games, you’ll be a step ahead of players who patiently waited until their bankrolls were strictly ready for it.
TACTICAL SHIFT
So, what is the difference between satellites and normal tournaments? The biggest and most important is that the ‘payout’ is the same for however many players earn seats at the end. You are no longer playing with a first-place win in mind, but to be one of several who make the payout structure. You won’t make many of the moves you might make late in a regular tourney, because they are too risky for you to be able to make profitably. You simply can’t play them like a normal tournament.
A clear-cut example of this would be the following: it’s late in a satellite tournament and there are 11 players left, five of whom will earn seats to the Four Queens Classic in Las Vegas. Your table is six-handed, and you are on the button with A-K suited. Your stack is at around 22,000 chips – slightly above average.
It looks like a good opportunity to get some chips, but all of a sudden, the player first to act goes all-in for the remainder of his stack – about 18,000 chips. You’re contemplating a call when, much to your surprise, the big stack directly to your right calls.
Now, A-K suited has roughly 50% equity pre-flop against any two other random hands, and this sounds very promising – a fifty-fifty shot at winning 36,000 for a bet of 18,000. However, you know that these two players don’t have random hands. At minimum, the big stack has shown significant strength by calling the all-in.
The short stack may be moving in with trash for whatever reason; he may have a big pair like A-A or K-K; he could have a medium pair like 9-9. You could put him on a lot of hands, depending on what you have seen him do up to this point. The big stack may be calling with a pair or two big cards, but not many other hands are possible.
Furthermore, you know the big stack is in a position to cruise through and make a seat without confrontation, so he would have to have a real hand to call here.
At this point, let’s make some more specific assumptions. Let’s assume the player under the gun moved all-in with a pair of Tens. This is a hand where many players prefer to get it all-in pre-flop and take down blinds, with a lot of equity in hand in case someone wants to face them off. And let’s assume that the big stack has called with A-Q suited, a hand strong enough for him to call, feeling it’s in his best interest to take another player out and move closer to the payout structure.
Since you have A-K suited, these assumptions would see you dominating the big stack and on something like a coin-flip against the player under the gun. Not bad, right? Well, maybe. Let’s run these three hands through Pokerstove to find your actual pre-flop equity.
Hand: A♣ K♣ equity %: 35.6363 win %: 35.08 tie %: 00.56
Hand: 10♥ 10♠ equity %: 40.8051 win %: 40.72 tie %: 00.08
Hand: A♦ Q♦ equity %: 23.5585 win %: 23.00 tie %: 00.56
So, it looks like you’re only 35% to win the hand. While an Ace or a King on the board could almost triple your stack, it’s just not worth the risk at this point – that risk being of eliminating yourself from the payout structure.
With only 11 players left, and five seats on offer, it’s like a game of musical chairs. You need to remain in the game so you can claim one of those seats. Survival is more important than accumulation, so 35% is nowhere near enough equity to make a call when your life is on the line and there is no more payout for first than for fifth. This is a state of find that many players in satellites don’t understand or fail to employ, and one that I use and exploit frequently.
You have to look at satellites from a different perspective to a standard tournament setting. For example, lower-level satellites typically have fishier players than normal tournaments, and it’s not uncommon to see half or even two-thirds of the field bust during the first few blind levels. Some just want to either accumulate or go home, but there are also a few boneheads in there, calling all-ins with K-10, or moving all-in against shown strength with a straight draw and at best eight outs.
So, early on in the tournament, when there are still a lot of fish giving action, what style of play should you adopt? Should you try to get out of the way of these donkeys and not play too many hands? Should you try to outplay everyone and get their chips the old-fashioned way – by seeing a lot of flops and taking down pots? Maybe you’d prefer to just move all-in with a middle pair and try to double up early.
Well, the answer is usually to take as many flops as you can when it’s still early, but not to risk too many of your chips in the process. A good example of this cautious style is a few weeks ago, when I was playing a satellite to the Party 500k Guaranteed Scene. It’s the first blind level and I’m in late position with A-Q. Two limpers. I raise to five times the Big Blind, the Small Blind quickly moves all-in and everyone else folds. The action is up to me. What should I do?
This wasn’t what I had planned. I just wanted to take the lead pre-flop with what likely was the best hand! I could still have had the best hand, judging by how this guy played. He had just doubled up with K-J from another donk with 5-5 all-in pre-flop. There was a wide range of hands that I might put him on, and in this case his all-in move was enough to make me fold A-Q.
In a freeze-out, though, I would have called against a donkish player with the same read. If I was able to put him on a variety of trash, then I could call with faith that I might have him dominated. But I only had 100 or so chips invested here – why risk the rest of my stack? I wasn’t playing to make first; I was playing for a chance to make the payout structure, which was about one-tenth of the tournament field. Early risks for my stack just weren’t in my best interest. I would rather get into a situation where I know I have the best of it, with A-A, K-K or Q-Q (sometimes J-J) pre-flop. That’s it.
Risks are all relative to rewards in poker. We can take big risks early on in regular tourney’s profitably, because these significantly rewards only those who make the very tipsy-top of the payout structure. We avoid these risks early on in satellites, because we have a greater chance of being rewarded by simply surviving long enough to make the payout structure.
The reward of having a big stack early is not significant enough in a satellite to justify going all-in when you’re unsure whether you have the best of it or not.
CHANGING GEARS
Assuming this strategy makes good sense to you, let’s move on to the middle game. Satellites normally start tightening down and just playing poker after the first hour, sometimes after about an hour-and-a-half. The crazies have either been knocked out or are sitting on big stacks. After employing the correct strategy for the early game, you should generally be somewhere in the middle – occasionally a big stack, but very rarely a short stack.
Now is the time to tap into your No Limit skills, concentrate on positional, post flop poker and just play your normal strong tournament game. Now is the time to take necessary risks, and try and take pots down if you’re pretty sure you’re best. An example would be the following hand…
It’s an hour-and-a-half into a PokerStars satellite to the Sunday 500k Guaranteed, blinds are 75 / 150. A player in middle position opens for three times the Big Blind – 450 chips. His stack and yours are about the same size – 4,000 or so. You’re in the cutoff, and you look down at a pair of Tens. You elect to call, and it’s heads-up to the flop.
The flop comes out 6-7-8, with two diamonds. The middle position player bets around half the pot, say 600 chips, and you have a decision to make. What should you do?
BUILD YOUR STACK
Well, it looks like you have to take a risk here. You may or may not have the best hand. He’s showing strength before and after the flop, so he could have you beaten with a higher pair or a set, or he could just have two overcards – it’s hard to tell. This is a situation where you must take a necessary risk. There are now about 1,800 chips in the pot, so it’s worth taking. You should raise to 2.5 times his bet and try to take it down. If re-raised all-in, you usually have to call because the pot is so big.
The middle game is the only time in a satellite when you can take these risks. The reason why is simple: because you’re trying to get in a position to outplay everyone else in the endgame, and you need chips to survive the harsh blinds and inevitable clashes to come. It’s worth taking risks now, while everyone is willing to play with you. In the early game or endgame, most of your opponents would not have made a continuation-style bet on that last hand.
The satellite becomes a lot more like a normal tournament in the middle game, and if you’re a strong tourney player already, you’re at a great advantage here – perhaps greater than at any other point in the satellite. You need to accumulate chips more than you need to survive in the middle game, and it’s when many of your busts should be happening if you’re playing a lot of satellites. Once you move into the end game, your goal is simple: win one of those coveted seats. Now is the time when a satellite gets the most different from other tournament settings.
You’re going to need to be active, regardless of your stack size. The biggest mistake that players in satellites make is not playing nearly enough hands near the end. Ultimately, the more active you are now, the more you can profit from others’ mistakes. Truth is, nobody really wants to get involved with a speculative hand. It’s a very uncomfortable situation if you play the conservative, safe way, and this strategy leads to failure.
Blinds are going to be too big for you to handle, and if they aren’t, then consider yourself extremely lucky. If it’s nearing the end of a satellite and blinds have made it so your ‘M’ is 15-20 (that is to say, it will take 15 to 20 orbits of the button for the blinds to exhaust your stack), then by all means, you must become a rock. But usually, only the big stacks have M-ratios above 15, and it’s much more likely that you will need to be very active in order to have a shot at a seat.
You simply have to maintain one blind steal per orbit, if not more. This is not merely a suggestion, it is a requirement. If you are re-raised, cut your losses and get out unless you have a good enough hand to play. If re-raised in the endgame situation, then you’re probably not ahead, because most players are ‘turtling’ and don’t want to play without Q-Q or better.
If you notice that a player has adopted the same strategy as you, and keeps raising with position and showing strength whenever it’s folded to him, you have to exploit him as well – especially if he sits a few seats to your right and keeps raising while you’re in a blind.
Believe it or not, he’s not looking to see a flop usually, and if you throw in a large raise, he’s probably going to be smart and fold. In satellite play, the other players are uncomfortably looking to sneak in without a fight. This is the biggest weakness you can exploit, and it’s fairly easy to see why. Once you’re nearing the bubble, the biggest mistake isn’t the one of losing chips through ill-timed aggression, it’s of losing your stack because you didn’t play a hand for four or five orbits.
The button moves pretty quickly around the table when almost all the play is pre-flop, and you’ll get blinded off a lot faster at this stage. You can’t rely on everyone else to drop out and hand you a seat on a platter. No Limit Hold ’Em, as we all know, is a very unforgiving game. You need to punish your opponents for not thinking that you deserve the seat, by pounding on their blinds and making them nervous.
You may have noticed by now that I haven’t really included opponents’ stack sizes in this discussion of the end game. Why not? Well, the short-stacked players are going to move all-in at some point, but they shouldn’t be able to hurt you much, so you can go ahead and hammer at them. And in my experience with satellites, it’s just as beneficial to take shots at big stacks as medium ones.
The big stacks think they have the seat in the bag, and that may be true. In fact, that’s the case with many big stacks – so what can you do? You can take their blinds as they watch and wait. They shouldn’t mind much. They’re not looking to lose any chips (except the blinds and antes) the majority of the time.
MOCK THE TURTLES
Big stacks are turtling down more than anyone else, so go ahead and take shots at them. In a normal multi-table tournament, I try to respect big stacks, and pretty much stay away from their blinds unless they’re super tight or sitting out. But in a satellite, big stacks and their blinds give me salvation.
Adopting an active strategy in the end game will work more often than not. If you’re fortunate enough to have a lot of chips as the bubble approaches, then an active strategy makes you nearly invincible. Generally, if you are a bigger stack, you should try to eliminate short stacks when given the opportunity. Hopefully there will be a couple of others with plenty of chips on your table who feel the same way.
Some other thoughts. Satellites appeal to weak players who want a shot at some big money. Your goal is to figure out what these weak players are thinking and exploit them. You will get placed out on a lot. Your Q-Q will lose to A-7 all-in pre-flop, probably more than once.
But don’t lose hope. Over time, as you become a dangerous satellite player, you will start racking up seats left, right and center. You will be able to play in events that your bankroll can’t afford yet, and have a shot at tournaments that pay over three years’ salary to the winner.
EXPERIENCE PAYS
The rewards are well worth the extra time it takes to learn, adapt to and eventually beat satellites. Even if you don’t win the bigger tournament, the experience of playing in it will improve your tournament game enough so that you can beat your normal scene that much more easily.
It frustrates me when players say that satellites are a waste of time. They aren’t a waste of time, because even if your bankroll is a seven-figure one and you’re one of the strongest online players in the world, you can still play satellites to major events and save a lot of buy-in money.
The bottom line is, satellites are easier to play and place in than normal MTTs, as long as you play the right way. They are way easier to beat, just because a good player can adopt a more formulaic approach than other tournaments and see better results.
As a tournament player, I have seen better results in satellites than I have in any other form of tourney. In satellites, strong players have a bigger edge than usual, and luck is less of a factor. I believe that you will find the same. So go on – get out there and win some seats!
How to be a... SATELLITE SUCCESS
Specialist Andy Holt offers his guide on how to succeed at satellite tournaments and win your way through to the major events.
Satellite play can be highly profitable, and is one of poker’s hidden treasures that we can all enjoy. I say this because satellites are passed over by many skilled players, who don’t see them as a good use of their time. Having qualified my way into many major online events, I believe that it’s a great investment of time to learn how to consistently beat satellites. And I have a few observations and strategies that everyone can use to help them play satellites profitably.
First and foremost, you have to think beyond the short term. For example, limiting yourself to three $22 + $2 attempts to satellite to the Bodog 100k is a bad idea. Although spending much more than that would be more than the cost of buying into the event itself, if you feel that you have an edge and you are comfortable playing, individual results should not determine how many times you play.
You simply can’t be limiting yourself and giving up a good thing just because you didn’t win a satellite right away. This is a mistake that I see many players make, and it really limits their potential.
One of the great things about satellites is that, if you succeed with them, they enable you to play in tournaments that your bankroll can’t normally afford. For example, if you have $3,000 and you want to play in the PokerStars 500k, you simply can’t buy in directly. But if you can satellite your way there, you will be playing out of your comfort zone, with more pressure to perform well in the face of skilled opposition. This can do wonders for your tournament game, and your general poker game as well.
Playing in big buy-in events can be very rewarding, just because of the invaluable experience you gain playing against tougher competition. If you can pick up that experience through satellite qualification, then when the time comes that you can genuinely afford to play in the big games, you’ll be a step ahead of players who patiently waited until their bankrolls were strictly ready for it.
TACTICAL SHIFT
So, what is the difference between satellites and normal tournaments? The biggest and most important is that the ‘payout’ is the same for however many players earn seats at the end. You are no longer playing with a first-place win in mind, but to be one of several who make the payout structure. You won’t make many of the moves you might make late in a regular tourney, because they are too risky for you to be able to make profitably. You simply can’t play them like a normal tournament.
A clear-cut example of this would be the following: it’s late in a satellite tournament and there are 11 players left, five of whom will earn seats to the Four Queens Classic in Las Vegas. Your table is six-handed, and you are on the button with A-K suited. Your stack is at around 22,000 chips – slightly above average.
It looks like a good opportunity to get some chips, but all of a sudden, the player first to act goes all-in for the remainder of his stack – about 18,000 chips. You’re contemplating a call when, much to your surprise, the big stack directly to your right calls.
Now, A-K suited has roughly 50% equity pre-flop against any two other random hands, and this sounds very promising – a fifty-fifty shot at winning 36,000 for a bet of 18,000. However, you know that these two players don’t have random hands. At minimum, the big stack has shown significant strength by calling the all-in.
The short stack may be moving in with trash for whatever reason; he may have a big pair like A-A or K-K; he could have a medium pair like 9-9. You could put him on a lot of hands, depending on what you have seen him do up to this point. The big stack may be calling with a pair or two big cards, but not many other hands are possible.
Furthermore, you know the big stack is in a position to cruise through and make a seat without confrontation, so he would have to have a real hand to call here.
At this point, let’s make some more specific assumptions. Let’s assume the player under the gun moved all-in with a pair of Tens. This is a hand where many players prefer to get it all-in pre-flop and take down blinds, with a lot of equity in hand in case someone wants to face them off. And let’s assume that the big stack has called with A-Q suited, a hand strong enough for him to call, feeling it’s in his best interest to take another player out and move closer to the payout structure.
Since you have A-K suited, these assumptions would see you dominating the big stack and on something like a coin-flip against the player under the gun. Not bad, right? Well, maybe. Let’s run these three hands through Pokerstove to find your actual pre-flop equity.
Hand: A♣ K♣ equity %: 35.6363 win %: 35.08 tie %: 00.56
Hand: 10♥ 10♠ equity %: 40.8051 win %: 40.72 tie %: 00.08
Hand: A♦ Q♦ equity %: 23.5585 win %: 23.00 tie %: 00.56
So, it looks like you’re only 35% to win the hand. While an Ace or a King on the board could almost triple your stack, it’s just not worth the risk at this point – that risk being of eliminating yourself from the payout structure.
With only 11 players left, and five seats on offer, it’s like a game of musical chairs. You need to remain in the game so you can claim one of those seats. Survival is more important than accumulation, so 35% is nowhere near enough equity to make a call when your life is on the line and there is no more payout for first than for fifth. This is a state of find that many players in satellites don’t understand or fail to employ, and one that I use and exploit frequently.
You have to look at satellites from a different perspective to a standard tournament setting. For example, lower-level satellites typically have fishier players than normal tournaments, and it’s not uncommon to see half or even two-thirds of the field bust during the first few blind levels. Some just want to either accumulate or go home, but there are also a few boneheads in there, calling all-ins with K-10, or moving all-in against shown strength with a straight draw and at best eight outs.
So, early on in the tournament, when there are still a lot of fish giving action, what style of play should you adopt? Should you try to get out of the way of these donkeys and not play too many hands? Should you try to outplay everyone and get their chips the old-fashioned way – by seeing a lot of flops and taking down pots? Maybe you’d prefer to just move all-in with a middle pair and try to double up early.
Well, the answer is usually to take as many flops as you can when it’s still early, but not to risk too many of your chips in the process. A good example of this cautious style is a few weeks ago, when I was playing a satellite to the Party 500k Guaranteed Scene. It’s the first blind level and I’m in late position with A-Q. Two limpers. I raise to five times the Big Blind, the Small Blind quickly moves all-in and everyone else folds. The action is up to me. What should I do?
This wasn’t what I had planned. I just wanted to take the lead pre-flop with what likely was the best hand! I could still have had the best hand, judging by how this guy played. He had just doubled up with K-J from another donk with 5-5 all-in pre-flop. There was a wide range of hands that I might put him on, and in this case his all-in move was enough to make me fold A-Q.
In a freeze-out, though, I would have called against a donkish player with the same read. If I was able to put him on a variety of trash, then I could call with faith that I might have him dominated. But I only had 100 or so chips invested here – why risk the rest of my stack? I wasn’t playing to make first; I was playing for a chance to make the payout structure, which was about one-tenth of the tournament field. Early risks for my stack just weren’t in my best interest. I would rather get into a situation where I know I have the best of it, with A-A, K-K or Q-Q (sometimes J-J) pre-flop. That’s it.
Risks are all relative to rewards in poker. We can take big risks early on in regular tourney’s profitably, because these significantly rewards only those who make the very tipsy-top of the payout structure. We avoid these risks early on in satellites, because we have a greater chance of being rewarded by simply surviving long enough to make the payout structure.
The reward of having a big stack early is not significant enough in a satellite to justify going all-in when you’re unsure whether you have the best of it or not.
CHANGING GEARS
Assuming this strategy makes good sense to you, let’s move on to the middle game. Satellites normally start tightening down and just playing poker after the first hour, sometimes after about an hour-and-a-half. The crazies have either been knocked out or are sitting on big stacks. After employing the correct strategy for the early game, you should generally be somewhere in the middle – occasionally a big stack, but very rarely a short stack.
Now is the time to tap into your No Limit skills, concentrate on positional, post flop poker and just play your normal strong tournament game. Now is the time to take necessary risks, and try and take pots down if you’re pretty sure you’re best. An example would be the following hand…
It’s an hour-and-a-half into a PokerStars satellite to the Sunday 500k Guaranteed, blinds are 75 / 150. A player in middle position opens for three times the Big Blind – 450 chips. His stack and yours are about the same size – 4,000 or so. You’re in the cutoff, and you look down at a pair of Tens. You elect to call, and it’s heads-up to the flop.
The flop comes out 6-7-8, with two diamonds. The middle position player bets around half the pot, say 600 chips, and you have a decision to make. What should you do?
BUILD YOUR STACK
Well, it looks like you have to take a risk here. You may or may not have the best hand. He’s showing strength before and after the flop, so he could have you beaten with a higher pair or a set, or he could just have two overcards – it’s hard to tell. This is a situation where you must take a necessary risk. There are now about 1,800 chips in the pot, so it’s worth taking. You should raise to 2.5 times his bet and try to take it down. If re-raised all-in, you usually have to call because the pot is so big.
The middle game is the only time in a satellite when you can take these risks. The reason why is simple: because you’re trying to get in a position to outplay everyone else in the endgame, and you need chips to survive the harsh blinds and inevitable clashes to come. It’s worth taking risks now, while everyone is willing to play with you. In the early game or endgame, most of your opponents would not have made a continuation-style bet on that last hand.
The satellite becomes a lot more like a normal tournament in the middle game, and if you’re a strong tourney player already, you’re at a great advantage here – perhaps greater than at any other point in the satellite. You need to accumulate chips more than you need to survive in the middle game, and it’s when many of your busts should be happening if you’re playing a lot of satellites. Once you move into the end game, your goal is simple: win one of those coveted seats. Now is the time when a satellite gets the most different from other tournament settings.
You’re going to need to be active, regardless of your stack size. The biggest mistake that players in satellites make is not playing nearly enough hands near the end. Ultimately, the more active you are now, the more you can profit from others’ mistakes. Truth is, nobody really wants to get involved with a speculative hand. It’s a very uncomfortable situation if you play the conservative, safe way, and this strategy leads to failure.
Blinds are going to be too big for you to handle, and if they aren’t, then consider yourself extremely lucky. If it’s nearing the end of a satellite and blinds have made it so your ‘M’ is 15-20 (that is to say, it will take 15 to 20 orbits of the button for the blinds to exhaust your stack), then by all means, you must become a rock. But usually, only the big stacks have M-ratios above 15, and it’s much more likely that you will need to be very active in order to have a shot at a seat.
You simply have to maintain one blind steal per orbit, if not more. This is not merely a suggestion, it is a requirement. If you are re-raised, cut your losses and get out unless you have a good enough hand to play. If re-raised in the endgame situation, then you’re probably not ahead, because most players are ‘turtling’ and don’t want to play without Q-Q or better.
If you notice that a player has adopted the same strategy as you, and keeps raising with position and showing strength whenever it’s folded to him, you have to exploit him as well – especially if he sits a few seats to your right and keeps raising while you’re in a blind.
Believe it or not, he’s not looking to see a flop usually, and if you throw in a large raise, he’s probably going to be smart and fold. In satellite play, the other players are uncomfortably looking to sneak in without a fight. This is the biggest weakness you can exploit, and it’s fairly easy to see why. Once you’re nearing the bubble, the biggest mistake isn’t the one of losing chips through ill-timed aggression, it’s of losing your stack because you didn’t play a hand for four or five orbits.
The button moves pretty quickly around the table when almost all the play is pre-flop, and you’ll get blinded off a lot faster at this stage. You can’t rely on everyone else to drop out and hand you a seat on a platter. No Limit Hold ’Em, as we all know, is a very unforgiving game. You need to punish your opponents for not thinking that you deserve the seat, by pounding on their blinds and making them nervous.
You may have noticed by now that I haven’t really included opponents’ stack sizes in this discussion of the end game. Why not? Well, the short-stacked players are going to move all-in at some point, but they shouldn’t be able to hurt you much, so you can go ahead and hammer at them. And in my experience with satellites, it’s just as beneficial to take shots at big stacks as medium ones.
The big stacks think they have the seat in the bag, and that may be true. In fact, that’s the case with many big stacks – so what can you do? You can take their blinds as they watch and wait. They shouldn’t mind much. They’re not looking to lose any chips (except the blinds and antes) the majority of the time.
MOCK THE TURTLES
Big stacks are turtling down more than anyone else, so go ahead and take shots at them. In a normal multi-table tournament, I try to respect big stacks, and pretty much stay away from their blinds unless they’re super tight or sitting out. But in a satellite, big stacks and their blinds give me salvation.
Adopting an active strategy in the end game will work more often than not. If you’re fortunate enough to have a lot of chips as the bubble approaches, then an active strategy makes you nearly invincible. Generally, if you are a bigger stack, you should try to eliminate short stacks when given the opportunity. Hopefully there will be a couple of others with plenty of chips on your table who feel the same way.
Some other thoughts. Satellites appeal to weak players who want a shot at some big money. Your goal is to figure out what these weak players are thinking and exploit them. You will get placed out on a lot. Your Q-Q will lose to A-7 all-in pre-flop, probably more than once.
But don’t lose hope. Over time, as you become a dangerous satellite player, you will start racking up seats left, right and center. You will be able to play in events that your bankroll can’t afford yet, and have a shot at tournaments that pay over three years’ salary to the winner.
EXPERIENCE PAYS
The rewards are well worth the extra time it takes to learn, adapt to and eventually beat satellites. Even if you don’t win the bigger tournament, the experience of playing in it will improve your tournament game enough so that you can beat your normal scene that much more easily.
It frustrates me when players say that satellites are a waste of time. They aren’t a waste of time, because even if your bankroll is a seven-figure one and you’re one of the strongest online players in the world, you can still play satellites to major events and save a lot of buy-in money.
The bottom line is, satellites are easier to play and place in than normal MTTs, as long as you play the right way. They are way easier to beat, just because a good player can adopt a more formulaic approach than other tournaments and see better results.
As a tournament player, I have seen better results in satellites than I have in any other form of tourney. In satellites, strong players have a bigger edge than usual, and luck is less of a factor. I believe that you will find the same. So go on – get out there and win some seats!