Bad timing
My co-author Barry Carter tells the story that on the day he and Jared Tendler published their first book “The Mental Game of Poker,” Black Friday happened. For those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s the day the feds in the US swooped and shut down the two biggest poker sites of the day, PokerStars and Full Tilt. Barry and Jared’s fears on what that meant for the sales of their new book proved unfounded, as it went on to be not only a seminal work on mindset in poker, but also possibly the best selling poker book of recent decades.
a new type of satellite in which the strategy is radically different from the traditional format
When Barry and I launched our first book “Poker Satellite Strategy,” about eight years later, once again an event on the other side of the Atlantic threatened to scupper the sales of our newborn. In this case, it was Matt Savage announcing his latest creation, a new type of satellite in which the strategy is radically different from the traditional format, so much so we feared that if it caught on it would render the book we had just published obsolescent. The new format is simple, deceptively so: in essence players win a seat not by surviving until the number of players equals the number of seats the satellite is awarding, but when they reach a specific target stack (generally the projected average required to win a seat in a traditional satellite).
Our worst fears were not realized on this occasion either, for a couple of reasons. First, the new format was slow to catch on, and second, the strategic differences were not as big as we initially thought. Over the intervening years, the new format has caught on and almost entirely taken over, so last year Barry and I added a new chapter to “Poker Satellite Strategy” covering the differences, and released a video.
The different variations
While the new format has caught on, and it’s intrinsically a simpler format than traditional satellites, it hasn’t exactly simplified things. For one thing, we can’t even agree on what to call them. Different operators use different names: landmarks, targets, milestones, 100k and away to name but a few.
Furthermore, there are several different variations. It all boils down to what happens to surplus chips when a player crosses the target, milestone or landmark. For example, someone sitting on a stack of 90k wins an all-in against a shorter stack getting them past the target of 100k to, let’s say, 120k. What do we do with the extra 20k? Again, there’s no industry agreed standard. There are at least four different answers that different operators are using:
(1) The player keeps the extra chips and is allowed to play on and win another seat. This is the simplest format as it’s basically a cash game with escalating blinds where you are forced to stay until you win a seat, or lose all your chips, or both. So there’s a linear relationship between chips and value (no ICM). This format was initially the most popular until organizers realized it meant less players would win entry to the tournament as a result of multiple seat winners. In an early one of these, one player managed to win seven seats! Because of this, this variant has almost disappeared.
(2) The extra chips just disappear from the tournament. This is inventor Matt Savage’s preference and is almost standard in the US now. It does mean that as soon as surplus chips have been taken out of the tournament, there are no longer enough left for the number of seats remaining, which in turn means at the death it reverts to being a traditional satellite, with the last few players being awarded seats without reaching the target.
(3) The extra chips are distributed equally to other players at the table of the player who just won a seat.
(4) The extra chips are distributed equally to other players who saw the river in the hand in which winning the player reached the target.
In all but type (1) there’s a non linear relationship between chips and monetary value, because any chips you win beyond the target are worthless to you. This creates some extreme ICM the closer you get to the target.
I said earlier that many of the strategies in traditional satellites still apply, and in many ways it’s a simpler format. Here’s why. One of the key skills in a traditional satellite is to estimate or calculate your COC: your percentage chance of winning a seat. A few sections of “Poker Satellite Strategy” are devoted to explaining how to do this, but in a target satellite it couldn’t be simpler: your COC is always whatever percentage of the target stack you currently have.
Pros and cons
When Matt Savage announced the new format, claims were made that it solved a number of problems associated with traditional satellites, Iike the advantages conferred by stalling late on, collusion (we have all played satellites where the locked up chip leader got to effectively decide who bubbled, or got his short stacked mate across the line), and chip stealing (organizers tell me one of the real issues with traditional satellites is that they always end with less chips than they started with, the implication being that unscrupulous players already locked up for a seat start going south). Out of these, I believe stalling is the only one it actually solves, for reasons I won’t go into here as I don’t want to tip off cheaters on reasons and methods to cheat.
in the “redistribute the surplus” variant, you can sit back and just wait for others to get over the line
It’s further claimed that this format rewards loose and aggressive play. I personally don’t buy that. Yes, you have to reach the target to get a seat, you can’t just survive on fumes til the end and get over the line with an ante, but you can get to that target any way you want. You can come out firing and gambling from the start, but you can also hang back and just wait for very good spots to inch towards the target. Additionally, in the “redistribute the surplus” variant, you can sit back and just wait for others to get over the line, and get some free chips. Of course that won’t get you there on its own, but it sure can help.
In the one I won for the Main Event in Barcelona, I was one of the last to get over the line, and calculated that I got about 30% of the target stack in redistributions. I believe that to be the optimal strategy, in fact. I dropped as low as two big blinds a few times, and passed some marginally plus chip EV spots because I was reasonably confident redistributions were coming soon. I don’t think I’m the only one who thinks this is the main edge (above skill) in these: another pro told me she routinely walks around looking at stacks deciding if or when it was optimal to late reg (when people were on the cusp of the target). You could argue that this problem only exists in the “redistribute the surplus” variants, but you’d be wrong. In the US variant all the chips are taken out of play, but this means it reverts to being a traditional satellite at the end, and many (including me) are sure that this means they should be strategically approached the same way as traditional satellites from the start.
The biggest advantage for both players and tournament organizers of the new format is they’re over much faster, meaning lower labour costs. As of yet that seems to be an organizer only benefit, as the reduced costs don’t seem to be getting passed on to players. They also place considerable demands on tournament staff, who have to run around with people exiting the tournament in both directions (as winners and losers) and verifying chip counts for winners. This means they also have to keep on top of breaking tables at double speed, created by the combination of players leaving in both directions as winners or losers. The PokerStars live events team aided by top notch technology were more than able for the task, but by contrast the World Series of Poker really struggled with this.
Now I’ve played quite a few I have identified some strategic nuances that hadn’t occurred to me before, but I will hold those back for a future piece.
