Tactics For Playing Satellite Tournaments.

Regardless of whether you are playing in a ‘freezeout’ or ‘re-buy’ satellite tournament, what type of players are you likely to come across when playing and what strategies should you adopt? The following is the response from a top-flight poker champion.

More than ever, contemporary poker play has made the game accessible to a vast number of players whenever a large tournament is played. Whether the tournament is offering cash prizes or holidays to exotic destinations, the chances are they will attract masses of players.

For example, today you can sit down in front of your computer, and play for the chance of a once in a lifetime holiday to Australia, or anywhere else in the world, with the exception of Grimsby.

Traditionally, super satellite have always proved to be excellent opportunities for poker players, and the tournament experience is no exception to this rule. It still remains the case, however, that the satellite tournament is one veritable rat race.

So, what type of player can you expect to come across when playing in a tournament, and what spiritual disposition should they adopt in order to give themselves the best possible chance of winning?

The first thing that we need to understand here, once you have decided to embark on the world of the satellite tournament, is that it will take a lot of time and effort to become a proficient, viable, contestant. Even if you are a poor player, tournaments will still take up around four to six hours of your time each time you participate, and you may only reach one of the lower echelons. In addition, if the prize is really attractive (a trip to Australia and an entry fee of $8.00 for example), you will be in for a long, arduous fight to the finish. Also, because of the link between the quality of the prize and the amount of the buy-in, you are encumbered by a probability of 1:60 in order to arrive at one of the winning, finishing, places. Therefore, we advise you to firstly consider if you can participate in freezeout super tournaments (meaning that you do not have to buy additional chips), and then you need to consider the opportunities from the point of view of the odds when in a tournament where it is possible to buy additional chips.

SUPER SATELLITE ‘FREEZEOUT’ TOURNAMNETS:

So…let us analyse the following scenario…focusing on the example of a tournament where a single player out of 60 will manage to get onto the final table, presumably, unless your name does not rhyme with Foil Trunson or even Haniel Degraneau, you will be in competition with player who will be, more or less, better than you . So what does this mean for you?

YOU NEED TO TAKE RISKS:

In order to be able to win one of the elusive, and precious, prizes, you need to throw yourself in at the deep-end early enough in the tournament to make an impact, do not hesitate to take risks, this is needed in such a situation. If you manage to collect a good sized stack by the middle of the tournament, you can lift the foot of the pedal for a while, and go into a survival mode. But, in my opinion, there are no possible scenarios when in a poker tournament to play purely for survival when you have only a few chips left, you cannot play safe, and you must take risks- particularly in a tournament situation. You need to accumulate chips in order to become any kind of viable competitor. Players, who approach the game from a ‘tight’ perspective, never do well in these situations.

Another consideration to take into account here is with regards to the environment of the online satellite tournaments of the modern age, and this is it; there will be a great deal of novice players, and they will play with an idiosyncratic, yet faulty, style, they will take part in rounds that they are unaccustomed to, and will be susceptible to erratic gaming, and drowning in a sea of confusion. It is a very common feature of the modern satellite poker tournament, this is something you need to accept, and consequently, you must assimilate this into your poker persona.

If you are lucky enough to arrive at an intermediate level in a tournament with a good solid stack, it is time to enter into survival mode. Good news, up to the present, you would have noticed which players in the game are the most susceptible to defending their blinds, and which players will be unable to. It is preferable to target those who will not attempt to defend their blinds with any gusto, and collect their chips. Chasing the blinds is an absolutely essential element of play in a satellite poker tournament at this stage…do not allow yourself to fall into mediocrity. Remember, you must, above all, realise that it always comes down to the size of your stack when in this type of tournament, as soon as you feel that your hand has a certain presence, then push it as far as you can.

Once you are approaching the bubble, especially if you are the player with the most significant number of chips at the table, at this moment only you can begin to play in a more tight fashion, and know ye the satisfaction of watching your inferiors battle it out amongst themselves (-ummmmmm….a slip back in time with the language there, the battle feeling overwhelmed). Take confidence from my experiences at poker, and the many times I have been humiliated in tournaments, and learn from these, as I have.

It has been around two years since, I found myself being chip leader in the course of the super satellite tournament…the last 9 players were to win a holiday 14 players could arrive at that winning stage of the tournament. During two consecutive hands, my Ace-Ace and King-King pair were beaten, which was very dangerous to my mental confidence at that stage. After that I was unable to recuperate from the blows and I finished in 11^th place. I put so much steam coming out of my ears that I could have steamed carrots…and at that point I was in a losing state of mind.

Should I have simply folded my hands when these two pairs came up? You could certainly advance the argument that I could have confronted my game in face of the other players in front of me at that time…and it could have been that I had no reason to invest so much into those two hands…the blinds were very high, I could easily have passed or folded the cards…and taken my chance on subsequent hands.

SUPER SATELLITE RE-BUY TOURNAMENTS:

With the super re-buy tournaments, it is a completely different situation than the freezeout tournament. You will find players whose strategy it is to go All-In, then buy more chips up until the point that they still have a significant stack…or up to the point that they have run out of money completely. I like calling these players re-bots, they re-buy like robots, unthinkingly. There strategy can sometimes pay-off, and they infuriate the other players around the table, as their strategy reflects no skill, just an endless, wasted, bankroll. If you find yourself facing a re-bot, who is constantly going All-In with marginal hands, play them and take risks because you will certainly have the better hand in some cases. Playing against players who play in such a style is a good way to accumulate chips, which will be crucial in the later stages of the tournament.

The principle tactic you should employ in a tournament where the re-buy limit is uncapped is to plan ahead of time how much you are willing to spend. Decide the number of re-buys you will undertake and do not exceed it, even id this number corresponds to one or zero re-buys, and attempt to get the chips off other players. In practice, it is very easy to get caught up in the excitement of the game. You need to accumulate a stack of consequence when in a re-buy tournament with no-limits, because big piles will be 10 times stronger than the authorised amount of re-buys that the end of the re-buy period.

At the end of the re-buy period, the tournament plays in exactly the same manner as a freezeout tournament, and in consequence, you will, at this stage, need to adopt the same style as you would in the freezeout.

The principle advantage of the uncapped re-buy tournament is that because of the number of re-buys per player, the tournament will generally have more winning places than the freezeout. So, it is tantamount to a tournament where the chances of arriving in a winning seat is 1:20, and not 1:60 as with the freezeout. The probabilities are thus a lot better here.

The number of opportunities given to online players to win prizes has never been as great as it is today. Take the risks and have a go, but keep your game moderate!!! Play, but take care….

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