I'm a World Poker Tour wannabe.

[jedi]

I live in Southern California, and the next WPT 2004 event coming up that I'm planning on going to is the one at Commerce Casino in LA in February. I would like to play in the main event and also play in the $500+40 Omaha 8/b tournament earlier in the series.

Now, I'm a online player, micro limits. I don't have a huge bankroll for this but I would like to play. Should I just consider this a vacation and set aside non-bankroll money to play in sattelites? How much do sattelites cost to get into the main event? What about the smaller events?

Is this just a bad idea? Even though I'm "dead money" I'd still like to give it a shot with some sattelites.

[Greg (FossilMan)]

This event must cost either 5 or 10K, so it wouldn't seem likely that you've got that size of bankroll anyway, if you're still playing micro-limit. Thus, you presumably would have to call this a special expense, and spend other money for it. If your bankroll is big enough to pay for this tourney, then you should step up your online play to at least 5-10, and start winning a useful hourly rate.

Satellites - Come in 2 major varieties, one-table events called satellites, and multi-table events called super-satellites. A sat costs 1/10th of the prize you're playing for, plus a bit more for the house. So, if the main event at Commerce costs $10,200 to enter, a sat will probably cost about $1035, with the winner getting the seat in the championship, and the house getting $150. Sats in this price range usually feature a pretty tough line-up of experienced players, and your chances of winning will likely be much less than 10% (since you're a newbie to this sort of action).

Super-sats often cost $200 plus vig to enter, and then have the opportunity for lots of rebuys and addons. The total prize pool will be divided by the cost of a seat, and the resulting number of seats will be given away, with the extra money going to the next player. Thus, if 100 players entered and the prize pool were $65,000, the final 6 players would win seats in the championship, and 7th place would get $3800. While there will be plenty of tough, experienced players in the super-sat, there will be a higher percentage of weak players than in a typical sat for the same prize.

Of course, everywhere is at least slightly different. The only way to be sure is to ask the right person at the Commerce.

There will also be sats for the smaller events. So, you will probably be able to play a 10-handed sat for the $540 Omaha8 event you want to play. Cost will probably be about $64 per player, one winner getting $540 in entry fees. Since this event costs 1/20th of the sat for the big event, the competition will be noticeably weaker, on average.

Good luck, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

[jedi]

Hmmm. This still feels like too much money for me, even for a special event. It's not that I don't have the money, but while I start playing online poker, I'm intentionally starting small and working up my way to the bigger stakes. I played at a $100+20 Limit Hold em tournament at the Orleans back in July, and only lasted for 3 hours before busting out.

Anyways, it looks like I might just have to set aside $1000 from next year's vacation fund and play sattelites until the $1000 is up.

Thanks for the info.

[ QUOTE ]
This event must cost either 5 or 10K, so it wouldn't seem likely that you've got that size of bankroll anyway, if you're still playing micro-limit. Thus, you presumably would have to call this a special expense, and spend other money for it. If your bankroll is big enough to pay for this tourney, then you should step up your online play to at least 5-10, and start winning a useful hourly rate.

Satellites - Come in 2 major varieties, one-table events called satellites, and multi-table events called super-satellites. A sat costs 1/10th of the prize you're playing for, plus a bit more for the house. So, if the main event at Commerce costs $10,200 to enter, a sat will probably cost about $1035, with the winner getting the seat in the championship, and the house getting $150. Sats in this price range usually feature a pretty tough line-up of experienced players, and your chances of winning will likely be much less than 10% (since you're a newbie to this sort of action).

Super-sats often cost $200 plus vig to enter, and then have the opportunity for lots of rebuys and addons. The total prize pool will be divided by the cost of a seat, and the resulting number of seats will be given away, with the extra money going to the next player. Thus, if 100 players entered and the prize pool were $65,000, the final 6 players would win seats in the championship, and 7th place would get $3800. While there will be plenty of tough, experienced players in the super-sat, there will be a higher percentage of weak players than in a typical sat for the same prize.

Of course, everywhere is at least slightly different. The only way to be sure is to ask the right person at the Commerce.

There will also be sats for the smaller events. So, you will probably be able to play a 10-handed sat for the $540 Omaha8 event you want to play. Cost will probably be about $64 per player, one winner getting $540 in entry fees. Since this event costs 1/20th of the sat for the big event, the competition will be noticeably weaker, on average.

Good luck, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

[/ QUOTE ]

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

A word of caution on Satellites. The money can add pretty quickly. Foxwoods had one of the more interesting structures for their WPT event - 2 satellites that led to one Super. I decided from the start that I didn't want to spend $1,060 for the super and tried to win my way in through the series. I entered 6 Act I satellites for $30 each and won my way into 3 Act II's. I finished 2nd in 2 of those. I bought straight in to 4 Act II's for $115 each and finished 2nd in two of those. I also played in one $67 satellite for the $500 + 65 event and finished 2nd in that one (does anybody see a pattern? /images/graemlins/mad.gif)

$707 and zero shots at the Super. There are two lessons here. 1) Satellites can drain your cash, and 2) I need to work on my heads-up game.

I think when the NEPC rolls around next spring I may just set the cash aside for the $500 and eschew the satellites.

[slamdunkpro]

Watch the Super Satellites - If it's a $225 SS with $200 re-buys and $200 add-ons then it's really a $600 Super Satellite.

When I played in the Satellites for the Borgata open I sat down and figured out how many players I had to best to get a seat in both the Sat and the SS. The Sat is easy - you have to beat 9 players. The Super Sat that I won was 156 players and they ended up giving out 8 seats, So I had to out last 19 players. I ended up rebuying and adding on so my seat really cost $600.

So to save $400 I had to best an additional 9 players.

The other thing to look at is the structure. The Satellite for the Borg event was 1000, chips with 15 minute blinds. The Super was 1500 chips and 30 minute blinds.

To me, with the chip counts and the ability to rebuy, plus the longer blind structure the Super was a better deal for me.