In this day and age of online poker, it seems there are promotions for winning seats into major live tourneys like the WSOP and WPT every month. But can you say dead money! I cannot believe how many bad poker players think of fame and glory. They enter these $10 satellites for the larger B+M tournaments and play some of the worst poker I have ever seen.
Satellite Tournament Strategies Tips
Here are some obvious things to think of when playing an online satellite tournament.
1. Look at the total chip count and divide by the number of prizes. So if there are 100 players, 100,000 chips and 10 prizes; you should only need 8,000 to 12,000 chips to finish with an advancement. I say 8,000 chips because 10,000 chips is the average and there will always be top heavy chip counts that will make up for 2 or 3 players. So if 3 players have 12,000, 15,000 and 20,000 chips, you will need fewer chips to make it to the final 10. According to our math, you would actually need 7,571. Of course it is always better to have a larger then average chip stack.
Late in any satellite tournament, 1-5 places before the prize, the tables get ultra tight. Tighter than a money MTT. In a money MTT, it is usually worth the risk to accumulate more chips and get into a higher prize bracket. In a satellite tournament there is no reason to move up in the rankings. Survival is even more important.
2. Don’t needlessly risk chips late, especially if you have the needed amount of chips to qualify with. Play your cards and steal a few blinds so they don’t whittle your stack away. Stay above the recommended qualifying amount of chips. Play your very good cards. Push the smaller stacks with good cards. Don’t waste your chips after the flop. The laws of probability should allow you to keep your chip count above the final table average.
I think how you play an online satellite tournament all depends on the ratio of players to prize pool. 1 out of every 10 spots paid has plenty of dead money for you to pick your spots and has a better prize pool structure than a regular online cash payout tournament.
If the prize pool is 1 in 20 spots then it is closer to a regular online tournament structure but still has more prizes. The more difficult prize pools are, for example when 1 in 30 or more players win a ticket, the more you have to change your game strategy to meet the prize requirements. You may not have as much time to wait for a great hand because you have to accumulate more chips to your stack to reach the final prizes.
It can be really worthwhile playing online satellite poker tournaments, because it’s a great opportunity for you to win a spot at a prestigious live tournament like the WSOP, allowing you to play against some of the greatest poker players in the world. These principles concern all types of poker game no matter Texas Holdem or Omaha Hi and all types of software no matter it is iPhone poker, PC or Mac operation system.