Dara O'Kearney (Satellite Specialist) - Ask Me Anything about satellites/knockouts

[sn0112]

Hello Dara,

I thought that I should add a testimonial for your book...

In a satellite with 60 odd players, we were down to the final 10 with 9 tickets were available. I was in 7th place and fairly comfortable.

In this situation, I remembered reading in your book that 'in satellites it's sometimes the correct play to fold pocket aces'...



Needless to say, I couldn't resist ...next time I'll follow your advice!

 

[amitmanchanda]

Free book question

Hi Cardschat,

I am Dara O’Kearney, known as Doke online. I am an Irish poker professional tournament player, with over $1 million in live earnings and more than $3 million in online MTTs, not to mention 8 PocketFives Triple Crowns.

I am perhaps best known for being a satellite specialist. I have won over $1 million in online satellites alone and have just written a new book on this subject called Poker Satellite Strategy:

Away from the tables I am the co-host of the Global Poker Award winning Chip Race Podcast and sponsored by Unibet Poker. Prior to poker I was an ultra marathon runner

Cardschat have kindly agreed to let me do an Ask Me Anything thread where you can ask me anything at all about satellites and tournament strategy. This will be on an ongoing basis, I’ll be checking in most weeks starting this one to answer your questions and to begin with I will be around tomorrow to answer the first batch.

Also this month I will give a free copy of my book on Apple iBooks to my favourite question, once a week for the next four weeks.

AMA


Dara

What are 5 Key differences between your satellite tournament game vs regular Tournament game?

Are you still giving free book or ebook?

 

[Dara OKearney]

Hi Dara. Do you think at some point, launch your book Poker Satellite Strategy, translated into Spanish? I have looked for it everywhere but I have not found it.

It's possible but no firm plans yet. For now the book has only been translated into French, and a German translation is being worked on at the moment.

Thanks for your question!

 

[Dara OKearney]

Hello Dara,

I thought that I should add a testimonial for your book...

In a satellite with 60 odd players, we were down to the final 10 with 9 tickets were available. I was in 7th place and fairly comfortable.

In this situation, I remembered reading in your book that 'in satellites it's sometimes the correct play to fold pocket aces'...

View attachment 278793

Needless to say, I couldn't resist ...next time I'll follow your advice!

View attachment 278794

Ouch. That's a pretty sick one!

 

[Dara OKearney]

What are 5 Key differences between your satellite tournament game vs regular Tournament game?

Are you still giving free book or ebook?

(1) Play tighter generally
(2) Choose lower variance pot control lines
(3) Aim to win enough chips to win a seat not all the chips to win tournament. Once you're there avoid any risks even if it means folding aces
(4) Maximise fold equity, minimise chances of being all in
(5) Pay more attention to other player tendencies, in particular their ICM awareness

Book giveaway over for now but we may do another one soon, that's my co-author's department


Thanks for your questions!

 

[trent32la]

I would like to hear your take on a few players.

cal42688, T 54 T 97s, LaurisL91, daysleft7, and vincelis.

 

[johnmaltz19]

Hello! I have not played satellites/knockout yet and I don't have enough knowledge about this. How can I play this kind of tournament? What is the difference between this two? And lastly how can I get better?

 

[amitmanchanda]

(1) Play tighter generally
(2) Choose lower variance pot control lines
(3) Aim to win enough chips to win a seat not all the chips to win tournament. Once you're there avoid any risks even if it means folding aces
(4) Maximise fold equity, minimise chances of being all in
(5) Pay more attention to other player tendencies, in particular their ICM awareness

Book giveaway over for now but we may do another one soon, that's my co-author's department


Thanks for your questions!

Thank you!

 

[1sunchin]

Hi Dara!

Now on partypoker we can see KO tournaments with differencies in main prizes/bounty.
1st kind - bounty>main prizes, 2nd - bounty<main prizes, 3d - bounty=main prizes.
What differencies in strategy we must use in those tournaments?
Thanks!

 

[Dara OKearney]

I would like to hear your take on a few players.

cal42688, T 54 T 97s, LaurisL91, daysleft7, and vincelis.

Calvin is one of the all time greats. Riiculously tough to play against because he puts you in very tough spots.

Laurynas is a beast, just doesn't make mistakes. We talked to him on our podcast The Chip Race.

Vincelis is similar, really good technically.

The other two ring a bell but I don't really know well enough to express specific opinion.

 

[Dara OKearney]

Hello! I have not played satellites/knockout yet and I don't have enough knowledge about this. How can I play this kind of tournament? What is the difference between this two? And lastly how can I get better?

Satellites are tournaments where the prizes are entries to a bigger tournament. Because the prizes are equal value, this makes the best strategy to play tighter than normal, particularly at the end.

Knockouts are tournaments where you get a prize every time you knock someone out. Tthis makes the best strategy to play looser than normal, particularly at the start.


Both are available on most sites so online is the best place to learn and my two books "Poker Satellite strategy" and "PKO poker strategy" the best way to learn

 

[scullkr]

HUDs

Hi Dara,

Making my way through the PKO book- excellent as expected and looking forward to the ICM book- I feel it will compliment the other two books very well.

2 questions:

1. Any tips re HUDs in the context of PKOs? I am relatively inexperienced with them as my regular site does not allow them but I know the gist in normal MTTs. I will soon start on Winamax (after finishing the book!) where it seems the majority of tourneys are PKOs. I imagine peoples' HUD stats in general will look a bit looser considering the predominance of PKOs, and should be interpreted with caution in regular MTTs?

2. In Chapter 8 of the PKO book (When ICM is a factor), we have ranges for BB call when Bu shoves and SB re-shoves. We have Early PKO call range at 49.3%, and PKO FT call range at 51.7%. Then when discussing the PKO FT call range you state that ICM does still play a role, as the range is not as wide as the early PKO spot. However it is actually wider with the figures provided.Is there a mistake here or am I reading something wrong?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Dara OKearney]

Hi Dara!

Now on PartyPoker we can see KO tournaments with differencies in main prizes/bounty.
1st kind - bounty>main prizes, 2nd - bounty<main prizes, 3d - bounty=main prizes.
What differencies in strategy we must use in those tournaments?
Thanks!

The bigger the bounty the wider we need to adjust our calling ranges when we cover (and can therefore with a bounty). All the examples and maths given in our book "PKO poker Strategy" refer to tourneys where the prize pool is split 50/50 between bounties and main pool, but you should play tighter when it is less and looser when it is more. As a very rough rule of thumb, multiple bounty factor by whatever the ratio is (so if 75% is bounty pool 25% normal you multiply by three, but if it's the other way round you multiple by 0.33).

Thanks for your question!

 

[Dara OKearney]

Hi Dara,

Making my way through the PKO book- excellent as expected and looking forward to the ICM book- I feel it will compliment the other two books very well.

2 questions:

1. Any tips re HUDs in the context of PKOs? I am relatively inexperienced with them as my regular site does not allow them but I know the gist in normal MTTs. I will soon start on Winamax (after finishing the book!) where it seems the majority of tourneys are PKOs. I imagine peoples' HUD stats in general will look a bit looser considering the predominance of PKOs, and should be interpreted with caution in regular MTTs?

2. In Chapter 8 of the PKO book (When ICM is a factor), we have ranges for BB call when Bu shoves and SB re-shoves. We have Early PKO call range at 49.3%, and PKO FT call range at 51.7%. Then when discussing the PKO FT call range you state that ICM does still play a role, as the range is not as wide as the early PKO spot. However it is actually wider with the figures provided.Is there a mistake here or am I reading something wrong?

Thanks in advance.

1. You are correct that people's HUD stats should be a lot looser in general in PKOs. In practise you'll find considerable divergence. Once you've been playing them for a while you'll have a fair idea what optimal stats look like, either by looking at your own numbers (assuming you're playing them well) or other winning regs. Looking around you'll find some people who are way looser and others who are way tighter: the spread is much more than in vanilla mtts. You'll also see other imbalances: some people will almost never fold rivers for example. Others will have insanely aggro flop stats where they just try to get in any decent made hand or strong draw.

2. Well spotted: that's unfortunately a typo which we have since corrected.

Thanks for your questions!

 

[samsonand]

When spending more than a few hours at the table, what would you recommend doing so as not to lose concentration due to fatigue or what technique to apply to avoid boredom due to the slowness of the other players

 

[scullkr]

1. You are correct that people's HUD stats should be a lot looser in general in PKOs. In practise you'll find considerable divergence. Once you've been playing them for a while you'll have a fair idea what optimal stats look like, either by looking at your own numbers (assuming you're playing them well) or other winning regs. Looking around you'll find some people who are way looser and others who are way tighter: the spread is much more than in vanilla mtts. You'll also see other imbalances: some people will almost never fold rivers for example. Others will have insanely aggro flop stats where they just try to get in any decent made hand or strong draw.

2. Well spotted: that's unfortunately a typo which we have since corrected.

Thanks for your questions!

Thanks for your reply Dara. Do you might clarifying what the typo is, as my Amazon Kindle version does not seem to have an update available. Are the stated ranges correct, and the wording wrong or is it the range that is off? Thanks again.

 

[cportweed]

at what time in a satellite should you change the modality of your game?

 

[Canadaking60]

Cardschat is such an awesome resource and I must start taking advantage of it. I hope to learn a lot from you Dara and improve to becoming a consistent winner.

 

[korg86]

my first poker luck (2012)

how do you like this distribution?

 

[Dara OKearney]

When spending more than a few hours at the table, what would you recommend doing so as not to lose concentration due to fatigue or what technique to apply to avoid boredom due to the slowness of the other players

I could probably write a book on this but my two top tips are:
(1) Some people are blessed with the ability to focus for hours on end at maximum intensity, but for the rest of us, an idea borrowed from chess, soft focus/hard focus, helps. Hard focus is maximum intensity, and you want to apply it every time you're in a hand, and every time you still have cards in front of you at the end (near bubble). Soft focus is where you allow your mind to relax while still trying to pick up anything major that happens
(2) If you feel bored because you're folding a lot, switch your focus to developing reads on other players (paying particular attention to how ICM savvy they seem: this will potentially be vital information later) and assessing their view of you (also potentially vital later as people who view you as tight will fold much more to your shoves and reshoves than people who think you're a crazy man because they saw you bluff or defend 73s and flop a house).

Thanks for your question!

 

[MsUniverse]

Is my strategy correct when I always push with A +?

 

[Dara OKearney]

Thanks for your reply Dara. Do you might clarifying what the typo is, as my Amazon Kindle version does not seem to have an update available. Are the stated ranges correct, and the wording wrong or is it the range that is off? Thanks again.

The wording is correct: the wrong range got pasted in.

 

[scullkr]

Great, thanks for clarifying. Good luck with the next book!

 

[Aleksander0305]

Фрирол и сателлит

Привет, Cardschat,

я Дара О'Керни, известная как Doke в сети. Я - ирландский профессиональный турнирный игрок в покер, у меня более 1 миллиона долларов реальных доходов и более 3 миллионов долларов в онлайн-МТТ, не говоря уже о 8 PocketFives Triple Crowns.

Я, пожалуй, больше всего известен как специалист по спутниковой связи. Я выиграл более 1 миллиона долларов только в онлайн-сателлитах и ​​только что написал новую книгу на эту тему под названием « Стратегия покерных сателлитов :

вдали от столов». Я являюсь соведущим подкаста Chip Race, получившего награду Global Poker и спонсируемого Unibet Poker. До покера я был бегуном на ультрамарафонские дистанции

Cardschat любезно согласились предложить мне создать ветку «Спроси меня о чем угодно», где вы можете спросить меня что угодно сателлитах и ​​стратегии турниров. Это будет происходить на постоянной основе, начиная с этой системы, чтобы ответить на ваши вопросы.

Также в этом месяце я буду давать бесплатную копию моей книги об Apple iBooks на мой любимый вопрос раз в неделю в течение четырех недель.

АМА


Дара

Здравствуйте. Спасибо за ваше время. Я играл около 50 сателлитов и фриролов, но у меня не раз не получилось дойти до призовой зоны. И изредка пытался блефом забрать банк когда я на бб. Чаще я немного накапливал фишек но в более поздней стадии мой стек тает до случая когда я иду во банк. Подскажите пожалуйста как держаться в более поздней стадии, когда с 50 бб становится около 10 только из за повышения ставок ??

 

[Dara OKearney]

at what time in a satellite should you change the modality of your game?

There are two answers to this: stack size and stage of tourrnament.

In terms of stack size, there's a precise answer: when you have more than 50% of the target stack for a seat. When you have 10% of target, if you double up your chances of cashing increase to roughly 20%. If you have more than 50%, say, 60%, you can't double your chances (to 120%) so you need to tighten up.

In terms of tournament stage, the answer is less precise but it's roughly when there's about 3 times as many players left as there are prizes. At this point ICM starts to ramp up and you should tighten up accordingly.

Thanks for your question!