Today, I'm going to take a break from posting in lesson format and just talk about satellites.

I love sats. They are my best game and almost everyone else's worst game. Many otherwise good, even great, tournament players completely blow up when faced with late game sat situations, are terrible at knowing when and how to pushbot, and add thousands of dollars to shortstacks' EV late in a sat. Cash game players are worse - I can think of at least one 25/50 NL winning regular who's close to dead money whenever he picks up a big stack in a satellite, solely through misplaced aggression. Last year, I picked up 2 WSOP seats in only four $650 events; this year, I won my first package on my fourth 'big event' try (3 Stars 650's and the FTP 1K event I qualified in) and, although I'll be traveling and probably playing for only half of May, hope to pick up 2-4 more packages before the ME starts. Thanks to the constant mistakes everyone else makes, playing a big sat awarding many seats is a little like playing during the good old days of 2004 Party.

Yesterday, I played a number of interesting hands that show how bad the play is. I'd rather not analyze them all today, but I'll throw one out there for now. Here's the hand that got me into the $1060 sat for a $109 investment:

Seat 2: the1captain (13,145)
Seat 3: DooshCom (19,800)
Seat 9: Adar (13,555)
the1captain antes 200
DooshCom antes 200
Adar antes 200
the1captain posts the small blind of 800
DooshCom posts the big blind of 1,600
The button is in seat #9
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Adar [7s Ah]
Adar raises to 13,355, and is all in
the1captain calls 12,145, and is all in
DooshCom: okay I got crap..
DooshCom has 15 seconds left to act
DooshCom: but..I'm gonna call anyway
DooshCom calls 11,755
Adar shows [7s Ah]
the1captain shows [Ad Qh]
DooshCom shows [Ks 4s]
*** FLOP *** [Tc 6s 2d]
Adar: win pls
*** TURN *** [Tc 6s 2d] [2c]
*** RIVER *** [Tc 6s 2d 2c] [4d]
Adar shows a pair of Twos
DooshCom shows two pair, Fours and Twos
DooshCom wins the side pot (820) with two pair, Fours and Twos
DooshCom: lol
the1captain shows a pair of Twos
DooshCom wins the main pot (39,435) with two pair, Fours and Twos
DooshCom: I did
Adar: ty

Funny call, right? Now let's do some math. This sat paid several people but gave out only 2 $1060 seats; third place got something like 480. Overall, then, we were playing for 2 more $580 spots.

If DC had sat out, losing this hand would leave me with 410 chips; he'd have 18K and captain would have 24K. I would then have to win around 3 consecutive all ins with a random hand, probably against two people at least once, just to come back to the 5K mark - at which point I'd still be a dog. In other words, my equity in the tournament if he'd sat out might be 10-20 bucks or so (you can use ICM - Google for this - to find the exact number, but I'd be shocked if it was more) and the other two would essentially have 570 each. Of course, if I won, the tournament would be over. In short, if he left and got himself a sandwich, he would wind up ahead maybe $575 in Sklansky bucks.

But DC called, figuring it didn't much matter what would happen. As it happens, he had two live cards, his best case scenario, giving him 37% equity/AQ 43%/me 20%. Let's examine what happens in this 'best case':

-When I win, the tournament is over;
-When he wins, the tournament is also over;
-When captain wins, the tournament is over only if I also lose. I'm a 56% favorite in the 820 chip sidepot.

It's not totally exact because equity isn't really winning percentage, but as it happens, a little over 20% of the time, I wind up with 820 chips, he winds up with 6K and captain has a giant stack. At that point, because it's my BB and his SB next, I am exactly 2 all ins away from being a big favorite to take the second seat. My equity in that scenario is somewhere in the neighborhood of $100, all of it coming out of his equity. Since that happens 20% of the time, this cost him 20 bucks - and that was the absolute best case. If I actually have a real hand or captain dominates him, the worst case costs him upwards of 50.

Sounds small, right? Well, the buyin is $109. This random 'I'll just toss in my chips to end this faster' call is like giving away a quarter of your stack before you ever start the tourney.

And that's why satellites will always be +EV.

EdmondDantes says

What's really revealing here, for me, is that math and ICM modeling aside, even a smidgen of common sense and intuition should have prompted DooshCom to fold. Not only that, he WAITED, as if he made some sort of conscious thought about his act. It wasn't as though he insta-called with QQ and said "Oh, wait! Should I have done that?" His call is really amazing. And the1captain? He must be still be reeling. Ouch.

In my experience, live satellite play is as bad, if not worse. I don't have a bubble hand worthy of the laugher you posted, but I witnessed a hand at a $1060 buy-in WSOP sat last year that still leaves me shaking my head.

I was playing a Mega satellite (http://www.tworags.com/files/supersats.pdf)...$1060 buy-in, 3000 chips, 40 minutes levels. We were about 2 hours in with the blind at 75/150 or so. To that point, the play was unremarkable with the occasional "QT is my lucky hand" or 69s played like the nuts nonsense. Then, this little gem came up. Stacks and bets amounts aren't exact but are close.

UTG (below average but not desperate stack--call it 2500 or so) raises to 600. I fold. Four players call. All players have 2000+ stacks; big stack has 6000+.

Flop is 862 rainbow. One of the blinds is in the hand; he checks.

UTG, original raiser, shoves; figure 1800-2000 for other guys to call. Player to my right had him covered; he calls quickly, leaving himself 1000 or so behind. Player to his right, the big stack, shoves for another 3000 or so. Player to his left immediately calls his shove. Blind folds. Back to the player to my right; he labors and finally calls. At this point, four players are all-in; none of whom had been in particularly desperate shape.

I'm thinking we're going to see over-pair, set over set, open-ended straight draw carnage. This should be good! Instead, we see the following...

UTG raiser shows T9s (his "favorite" hand); high card T with a gut-shot draw.

Player to my left turns over K8o, having called a shove by an UTG raiser AND then a second shove by the big stack...with TP2K.

Player to his left, the big stack, shows a set of sixes; "NH, sir."

Player to his left, who, I repeat, was not short-stacked by any sense and had immediately called two shoves in front of him, shows AKo. He's drawing dead.

UTG player stands up and announces "I have a lot of outs." and believes it.

I'm looking at the table in disbelief and catch the eye of one of the blinds; he's also looking at the action like "WTF?".

Turn is a K, at which point AKo player, who should be heading for the exit in shame, shouts "Yes!" believing the gods have resurrected his hand. They haven't.

River is, of course, a 7 giving the UTG player one of his "many" outs. At this point, AKo and K8o players shake their head at their misfortune and start moving from the table. The cracked set of 6s then starts spinning out of control, berating UTG for playing the hand to which UTG responds that he played the hand well and had "tons of outs". 666 boy still had plenty of chips left (he had 6000+ at the start of the hand) but then OBSESSES with T9c guy playing every hand he's in. Within 15 minutes, he's out after shoving a ragged small flop with JTo and getting called by a pair of 3s.

The point is, there's a fair bit of dead money in live satellites as well. You'd think when someone plunks down $1000+ (there's no $109 feeder for this live event), they'll have some sense of how to play or, more accurately, to fold. Definitely not always the case.

Edmond

04/28/07

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