Guide to Poker Stars Sunday Million Satellites
The Poker Stars Sunday Million Is The Week’s Biggest Online MTT.
Find Out How To Win A Seat For As Little As $3!
The PokerStars Sunday Million has become the biggest regular online poker tournament around. Often attracting fields of more than 6000 players – the prize pool is usually over 1 million dollars each week!
As the buy-in for the Sunday Million is high ($215 most weeks and $530 on the last Sunday of each month). This means Satellite tournaments are a very popular way of getting a seat. This article looks at some of the many different types of Sunday Million Satellite Qualifiers available and looks at the Pro’s and Con’s of each.
Even if you do not wish to play in the 'main event' the great thing about these is that you can un-register and take tournament dollars (T$) instead. These can be used for any tourney, including sit and goes or exchanged for cash at about 80 to 85% value at a number of websites.
SNG Planet has a whole section dedicated to Satellite Poker Tournaments which contains strategy articles and more...
So, here are the different types:
1) Double Shootout Satellites to the PokerStars Sunday Million.
These are basically 2 SNGs, if you win the first table then you move to the second and can win your seat for getting 1st to 4th (depending on number of entrants) the remaining final table finishers often get cash 'runners up' prizes. These cost $11.70 and when full (100 players) give 4 seats + $35 for the final table. There are 2 versions, standard with 15 minute blind levels and turbo with 5 minute levels. There are also smaller buy-in 'Triple Shootouts' with 6-person tables available.
Pros: Cheap way of getting a seat, horrific standard (make $3 SNGs look like the WSOP!)
Cons: Even a good SNG player can not expect too many 1sts... the bad opponents make these a bit of a minefield.
2) Fixed Buy-In MTT Satellites to the PokerStars Sunday Million.
These vary from $10+1 to $39 and have the standard 15 minute blind levels. Expect fields of 200+ (more on Sundays) and the standard of play to be poor. The lower buy-in MTTs may seem cheaper but can actually make it very hard to get a seat due to the poor entrant / seat ratio.
Pros: Fixed outlay (compared to the re-buys), poor standard of play - particularly at the bubble.
Cons: Poor seat / entrant ratio at lower buy-ins.
3) Re-buy MTT Satellites to the PokerStars Sunday Million
Will mention the rebuys with standard blind levels (15 mins) separately from the turbo re-buy satellite tournaments, these are $11 or $3 buy-in and the fields fairly large (400+ especially on Sundays). Poor standard of play - as with most of the satellites.
Pros: More time for skill advantages to come into play.
Cons: $3r has poor seat / player ratio.
4) Turbo Rebuy MTT Satellites to the PokerStars Sunday Million.
My personal favorite! The buy-ins are $3, $8 or $10 (+10% fee as usual). You get 1000 chips to start and the blinds go up every 5 minutes. There is an add-on break after 30 minutes.
By the time the break is over the blinds go up frighteningly fast - after 1 hour of play they are already 1000/2000 so no time to mess around! There is a lot of 'dead money' - people who nurse small stacks waiting for aces or do not re-buy at all... there are also a lot of people playing these who really do not understand the dynamics of the bubble, gambling their big stack with another player when folding into the money would be easy.
My experience is that these suit my SNG style of play, identifying spots to steal late and the all important 'unexploitable pushes' being a vital part of the game. Entrant numbers vary from 200 to 400 (again more - and worse - players on Sundays).
Pros: Dead Money, Poor Standard of play.
Cons: Can become a bit of a crap-shoot, need to win your coin-flips late.
5) Sunday Super-Satellite to the PokerStars Sunday Million.
A more recent introduction is a $55 ‘Super Satellite’ held just hours before the main event starts. This in turn has qualifier satellites for as little as $4. The relatively large field and good seat to entrant ratio make this a viable option. On a standard buy-in week ($215) there is approximately 1 seat for every 4 entrants. Since this is the ‘last chance’ to qualify for many players you may encounter, and thus exploit, scared money along the way.
Pros: Scared Money, Good Seat / Entrant Ratio
Cons: Relatively high buy-in if you do miss out.
There are also many Sunday Million Satellites which can be entered using Frequent Player Points – these will be covered in a separate article later.
Check out Pokerstars right now and find out why this is the internets number one poker room for yourself.
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