Poker Satellite Qualifiers

Poker satellites allow you to qualify or big buy-in tournament events, both live and online. This section of the site gives you all the strategy knowledge and information you need to locate – and beat – these qualifiers at the leading poker sites.

Big name live events that you can qualify for online include the World Series Of Poker, The European Poker Tour and one-off special events live the Aussie Millions and Pokerstars Caribbean Adventure. These games attract the superstars of the game and have prize pools measured in the millions, and every year 1000’s of online poker fans get the opportunity to take part. In addition the big names, there are plenty of smaller live events located in Europe, Latin America and elsewhere. You will find plenty of individual articles on specific live tournaments here. I describe the prizes (which usually include hotel, flights + expenses) and different options for winning that ticket!

Online Poker Events are the other key focus of this page. Every poker site runs some kind of tournament event these days – with the bigger ones running them several times yearly. These go by aconyms such as the WCOOP (World Championship Of Online Poker), FTOPS (Full Tilt Online Poker Series) and iPOPs (iPoker Online Poker Series). Each includes several big buy-in games, and all the sites encourage their smaller stakes players to take a shot via satellite qualifiers. I recommend these events for many reasons – in particular the opportunity to take a shot at potentially career-changing money for a small buy-in. You can also win a seat in the so called ‘Sunday Majors’ the biggest games of the week at the major sites, these include the famous ‘Sunday Million’ as well as other games with guaranteed prize pools of up to $300,000.

Strategy for satellites rests on the fact that survival is more important than chip accumulation. When there are many identical prize packages there is no reason to risk a comfortable stack size when others are at greater risk of busting before you. In fact, at the ‘bubble’ of a satellite qualifier it can be mathematically correct to fold aces before the flop – in situations where there are several small stacks it can be a mistake to do anything else.

My articles explain bubble strategy for satellites in depth, however there is a lot more to successfully qualifying than just the bubble. You need to accumulate enough chips to get there in the first place, and you also need to work out which of your opponents understand the dynamics of the tournament and adjust to their behavior.

Additionally, not all satellite qualifiers are the same format. In addition to the standard rebuy and freezeout MTTs, you will find hyper turbos, double-shootouts, steps and super-satellites. Each have their pros and cons (as well as your personal preferences for different games) and each have their unique strategy considerations too.

Finally, some poker sites have regular cross-over traffic from sports-betting or gambling sites, while others are the home of more specialist poker players. As you can imagine, this makes a huge difference to the average skill level of your opponents – affecting your profits. Make sure you choose a site with the softest opponents, this is as important a poker skill in satellite qualifiers as in cash games. I provide you with plenty of comparisons and reviews to help you find the very best site for satellite qualifiers.