Guarding the Seat: Being Conservative in Satellite Tourneys

Satellites, super-satellites, super-super-satellites... you get the idea. With the WSOP fast approaching, virtually every site has its own play-your-way-in structure of small-buy-in events, with the lucky winners moving every higher on the period in an attempt to leverage their way into a Las Vegas trip, much as Chris Moneymaker did when he parlayed that $30 buy-in at Poker Stars into a $2.5 million payday back in 2003. However, it takes repeat success to move up the ladder in this fashion, and it really is a case of capturing lightning in a bottle.

Still, dreams are cheap, and that's part of the fun.

But the frequency of these events right now and a recent fun time by me over in a like-structured in Poker.com's Blogger Poker Tour allows for the examination of this topic in an unusual way. When you're in an event where only one person moves on, then you play to win. But what's the right strategy when say, 30 people out of 1,000 entrants win the right to move on to the next step on the ladder?

The answer is that aggressive play is needed only to a certain point; in certain circumstances the ultra-rock perspective is the hands-down best bet. Simple enough. Most players monitor the leaderboard in large-field supers, such as the freeroll WSOP tourneys over at Full Tilt. During play it's easy to see the compressed nature of the stacks, and most people have a general feel for the right play. There's just no need to keep pushing hard if you've been fortunate enough to amass a huge early stack. But at what point do you hit the brakes?

While there's no one-size-fits-all answer, due to variations in the escalations of blinds and antes, there are some general guidelines one can use in large-field satellites of this nature. Start by using the formula that will show you the average [mean] chip stack at the point the bubble bursts, but set it up in this manner:

(# of players) * (Starting chips) / (# of seats awarded) = Avg. stack

In this example, let's say that 1,200 players start the tourney with 1,000 chips each, and the last 30 players will win seats to the next higher tourney on the ladder --- perhaps the final. So our formula becomes:

1200 * 1000 / 30 = 40,000

When the bubble bursts, the mean chip stack will be about 40,000 --- and most of the sites that offer this statistic show this figure at the moment it occurs. 40,000 chips sounds nice, and in fact, chances are the dropoff point in the field just prior to the bubble bursting would be down around 20,000, perhaps less; the short-stacked stragglers tend to thin out below 50% of the mean stack in these circumstances.

But the bubble point itself isn't the question; gauging your progress in the rare instance you make a huge early push is.

Rather than the by-guess-and-by-gosh method, simply use a "two times, three times" approach. If you're able to get your stack up to "two times" the number that will be the average stack at the bubble, or in this case, 80,000 chips (2 x 40,000), then rock-like play is called for, contrary to the approach used in most other tournaments. Play your monster pairs and suited slick, and don't worry about too much else unless the pot offers you enormous odds on a cheap knockout. And if you get to the "three times" level, then consider that "auto-fold" button for the remainder of the tourney. You have no responsibility to the other players to knock out the shortest stacks on their behalf --- the same number of the remaining players are going to join you in the next tourney, whomever they happen to be. The worst thing you can do is to speculate on a coin-toss situation when you have no reason to be in the hand in the first place.

Put in on cruise control; pack it in. Trust that the ever-increasing blinds will force the confrontations that will continue to winnow the field... they always do. After all, you've got your seat already.