Poker Satellite Tournaments - How to Win a Seat at the Big Events

Poker Satellite Tournaments - How to Win a Seat at the Big Events
If you've never tried your hand at satellite poker tournaments online, you may very well be missing out on the cheapest way to play big cash tournaments. They can also be a very effective bankroll building strategy should you cash in the tournament you won admission into.
The reason you play satellite tournaments though is to win your seat into another tournament that normally would cost you much more. Some online poker rooms let you compete for tokens, and while these are also a type of satellite poker tournaments and in effect permit you to do the identical thing, owning a token allows for a wider choice for when and where to use it.
For example, if there is a Sunday tournament you want to enter where the buy-in is $200, it is almost guaranteed that you can play in a satellite tournament with a much lower buy-in to win a seat in this tournament. Of course the benefit is that the satellite tournament may only cost two dollars or five dollars - sometimes they are even freerolls where you can get in for nothing or some of those player points you never use.
You have to come first or place in a satellite to take advantage of this, but when you do win, it's quite gratifying to appreciate that all of the other entrants in the satellite tournament assisted to pay your way into a big-money tournament. You might have to do this several times before you cash in a big-money tournament but even making the money in a $200 tournament is going to add a lot to your poker account because you burned nearly nothing to earn a few hundred bucks. This is one of the reasons why many low limit players play really tight near the money.
Now depending on the payout of the satellite structure, you may have to adjust your game at least a little, and sometimes drastically. Principally in the case where only one player is going to succeed. There is significant aggression and ICM tactical play involved in particular when you get down to the final table. So there is absolutely a different dynamic to deep strategy in these to keep in mind, and practice to make these profitable tournaments.

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