Online Poker Satellites - How to Turn as Little as $1 into
Millions
What do Dr. Vic Fey, an obstetrician from Clinton, Oklahoma,
and Erick Brenes, a farmer from Costa Rica have in common? They
both made it to the final table of The World Poker Tour's Aruba
Poker Classic. And what makes it more remarkable is they won
their $6,000 buy-in and the trip to Aruba by playing a $27
satellite tournament at the online poker room, Ultimate Bet.
Neither of these men are professional poker players but at the
end of the tournament Vic Fey finished in 6th place and won
$105,000 and Erick Brenes finished in first and went home to
Costa Rica $1,417,000 richer. Not bad for a $27 investment.
What are satellites and how do they work? Basically a satellite
is a way to enter a major tournament and play for big money
without having to pay the large buy-in required. For example,
the buy-in for the World Series of Poker (WSOP) is $10,000. An
on-line poker room could sponser a tournament with a $1,350
buy-in (they will also charge somewhere around 9-10% for a
registration fee). For every 10 players in the tournament there
would be a prize pool of $13,500, enough for the single buy-in
to the WSOP and some extra for spending money. So for a $1,350
you could win your entry to the major tournament. If there are
100 players then the players who finish in one of the top 10
positions would be on their way to Las Vegas and a chance at
$10,000,000, the estimated top prize in this years tournament.
A thousand dollars is still a little steep if you ask me but
you're dying to play in the WSOP. So you go to an online poker
site like Royal Vegas Poker. There, they have a way for you to
make it to the World Series for as little as $1. It takes six
steps and works like this:
Step 1: You pay a $1 buy-in and a $.10 registration fee. You
play against ten other players. If you come in first or second
you've made it to step two.
Step 2: You enter this tournament by either coming in first or
second in step 1 or by directly buying in for $5 + $0.50. Come
in first or second and you move on to step three. Come in third
and you get to play level 2 again free.
Step 3: Same deal. Enter by placing 1st or 2nd in the previous
step or buy-in for $22.50 + $2.25. The final 2 players get free
entry to step four and third place lets you repeat step 3 and
pays you $2.75.
Step 4: The buy-in for this level is $100 + $10. Come in first
or second and go to step 5. Come in third and play step 4 over
again.
Step 5: If you happen to have $450 + $45 you can buy-in to this
level. If you've were lucky enough to come in 1st or 2nd the
previous step, it costs you nothing. The first two finishers go
to the final step, third place gets to play step 5 again.
Step 6: You've made it to the final step. Of course you can just
cough up the $1,350 + $135 to play in this game or you might
have gotten here all the way from step one for $1. In either
case, finish 1st in this ten player table and you're on your way
to the WSOP. Come in 2nd and you win $1,000.
This is just one example of an on-line poker site's roadmap to
the WSOP. At FullTilt poker you can get there for as little as
$4. And they have a promotion in which if you gain entry to the
tournament through their site and win the $10 Million at the
WSOP, they will match it with an additional $10 Million.
Party Poker has satellites starting at $9,InterPoker can get you
there for $10, and UltimateBet has games for as little as $3.
There are even some sites where you can gain entry through
freerolls (tournaments with no entry fees).
There are all sorts of tournaments like this at many different
online poker sites and they all follow the same basic pattern.
You buy-in at a low level to win entry into a higher level
tournament. I narrowly missed making it to the PartyPoker
millions tournament with a $10,000 buy-in and a prize pool of
$7.5 Million. For $6 I worked my way up to the finals where I
needed to come in one of the top 4 positions. Unfortunately I
finished 9th, but there's always next year. And boy, did I get a
lot of entertainment and excitement for my $6.
So if you're looking to be the next poker star and you don't
want to put down $10,000 to get in the game, check out the
different online sites and see if you can turn $1 into a million.
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