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

[alien666dj]

How much per month can you earn playing satellites/knockouts?

 

[Clease]

Hi Dara,

this Saturday I will win a ticket for a 55$ PKO starting on Saturday 6 am German time. I know this because I'm a member of dare2streams competion. Problem is normaly I'm playing only 1.50$ 9max SNG. I have already your book. So which chapters are the most import for me. Or some youtube / Twitch videos I should look. Could use the money for bilding my bankroll and starting with PKO, after reading the book. Start bounty for each player will be 12.50$ and I think maximum starting number of players will be 120.

And sorry for my bad English I'm a German native speaker.

 

[Dara OKearney]

I have a good question, Dara, and it has been bothering me a lot. It's about tournaments.

So, I play mostly tournaments, very low buy-ins at the moment (sorry, that's all I can afford) and I get in the money in most or a high percentage (>60%) of them, but I rarely get to the final table. I play tight, I don't risk much and I build the stack steadily early on to get me into the money. Once ITM, I find myself pretty low-stack and forced to push/fold and as a result, gambling.

This play is profitable as long as the amount won is 40% more than the buy-in (which it normally is). Of course, there's incentive to go for top 3 places as the profit is considerably higher. From a business point of view, constant profit is the aim and long-term it would be the correct play. It's basically Bill Gates vs Elon Musk or Coca-Cola vs Bitcoin.

What would be your opinion on this? Do you think it's a better play to get constantly in the money and once there, play a push/fold strategy with fingers crossed while praying to the Gods of poker for luck or risk more pre-ITM in order to keep building a stack, avoid the prayers' stage and have a better chance of reaching top places but with the risk of not reaching ITM.

Very interesting question. Here are some thoughts
1) While getting in the money in any individual tournament, or as many as possible, is obviously desirable, it's adjacent to the goal of playing tournaments but isn't the actual goal. The actual goal is to make as much money as possible in the long term
2) Playing in a style that is too "gambley" often results in players not making the money as often as they should. This is a very common leak. A less common leak is prioritising getting in the money too often, believe it or not, if this comes at the expense of playing too conservatively around the bubble. Online where generally 15% of the field are paid, winning players typically have an ITM of 17%. However, I once saw a losing player who had an ITM of 19% over a large sample. They were losing because while they cashed more often than most, these were nearly all min cashes where they scraped into the money. This player was almost certainly tightening up too much around bubbles.

From what you've written, I suspect you are playing the early stages of tournaments when there is little or no ICM very well, but you may be tightening up too much around the bubble. Assessing just how tight you should be is very difficult, and I could write a whole book on the subject. In fact I have

https://amzn.to/3lR4aen

As a very general guideline, the shorter your stack is near a bubble, the more you should be focusing on getting into the money. This is because the min cash will represent most of your equity, and doubling your stack won't come even close to doubling the dollar value of it. However, with a medium stack this isn't true, and you should be less concerned about locking up the cash (or busting), and with a big stack you really shouldn't be tightening up much if at all.

Thanks for your question, and hope this helps

 

[Clease]

Thx a lot for the answer. Hope it will help me. And I have already the book as a fan from you. And I will write i the general section about the result. Also about what should I do with the 109$ ticket which I will receive

 

[Clease]

Finished on place 12 for 101$ incl. 3 knockOuts.

 

[Dara OKearney]

Hi Dara,

Do you think think there is a final table bubble that can be exploited by a larger or significant sized stack? Or even any stack if you see players tightening up again?
Lets say 15 players are paid, so the bubble has burst, but we're down to 10/11 players. I feel like many players tighten up again here, wanting the achievement of FT. The reality is the payout structure does not recognise specifically how many players actually make the FT. But there is a significant kudos earned by getting there.

Thanks
Ian

Hi Ian,

Very interesting question. Two points spring to mind:
1) Most people don't realise it but ICM is actually at its most extreme typically on a final table bubble. ICM peaks on the FT bubble, and then reduces with each subsequent elimination (until headsup when there is no longer any ICM). This makes it correct for people to play tight when covered, and bigger stacks to attempt to use this to pressure shorter and medium stacks
2) I think you're correct that in additional to this actual financial ICM pressure, there's an additional "emotional" ICM of people wanting to make the final table, which causes them to play even tighter than the strictly should

So yes, try to identify players doing that, and exploit them.

Great question!

 

[Notsoyoungrich]

I might playing a first live wsop event next month in Calgary. What would you suggest is the right one? I play online a little. I’m familiar with the strategy of playing MTT’s would it be best to play a black chip bounty as my first live tournament or a double stack event? I feel like a bounty tournament is more justification for all ins. I’m torn

 

[Negan92222]

Do you feel like the hands are structured to make you play and commit chips. I feel too often they hit when I'm winning and I don't hit when I'm loosing, is it a roller-coaster for you? And do you get knocked out as many times as you have earned some money

 

[Dara OKearney]

With 10 ticket payouts in a 100 man tournament, with 18 players remaining at 2 tables, blinds are 5 minute online. You have 8 BB in 15th place and this round has just started. This a low cost entry tournament, so about half the players clearly don't understand tournament strategy (they push far too tight in LP, they call far too wide vs both EP and LP). There is 1 30+BB stack at your table, 2 ~15BB stacks, 3 stacks similar to you (9-12BB) but slightly cover you, and 2 stacks shorter than you on your right. The short stacks and big stack seem to understand ticket strategy, as do 1 of the 15BB stacks, 1 15 BB and the 2 similar stacks to yours play as described above. What sort of adjustments should be made at this table?

First off, kudos to you for not just saying the other players are weak but identifying the specific leaks they have. That's the first step to identifying how to best diverge from GTO to specifically exploit.

Some thoughts:
(1) As 15/18 with only 10 tickets, you have to play relatively normally and take any good spot, particularly shove spots
(2) Nevertheless you want to maximise fold equity as you'd rather not be called most of the time. Normal strategy dictates shoving wider in late position (less players behind) and tighter in early position (where your range should also become more blocker heavy). The most important player to consider in these situations is the big blind as they are the most likely to call. You want to shove into stacks you can "hurt": a 30 bb stack can call you off and still be comfortable, but a 15 bb stack can't, so shove wider into 15 bb stacks and less
(3) An important caveat is the theory is all well and good but the practise can be a lot different. A 15 bb stack "should" call you off tight but if you believe they don't know that and will call too wide, then tighten your shoving range to stronger hands in good shape against their calling range and with blockers. A 30 bb stack can call you off wider but if you suspect they have "locked up" and won't, then widen your ranges
(4) You are allowed to defend your bb but do it judiciously with hands that have good equity realisation post flop
(5) Reshove ranges should be much more blocker oriented and have good equity against calling range. Don't reshove hands like 22 or 87s

Hope this helps and thanks for your question.

 

[Dara OKearney]

Hi Dara, when it gets to the later stages of a tournament (from ITM to final table portion), I find myself struggling to put myself with a good chip stack if I am able to make the final table. If I have an above average stack, how can I best take advantage of those players who are short stacks just glad to be ITM to take their stacks and increase my chip stack rather than continuing to get drop because of blinds? Especially if I'm card dead, are there certain scenarios where you can make optimal plays? Thank you in advance for your feedback.

Hi,

One thing you need to guard against in tournaments is allowing what you want to happen influence your strategy. Obviously when we all have an above average stack in these spots we'd love to push on and get to the final table with a big stack, but that desire isn't particularly useful. Really we should just focus on making optimal decisions based on our stack size and that of others.

That said, there are a couple of strategic points to focus on, and things to look for in your opponents you might be able to exploit:
(1) It's important to remember that when you're playing against short stacks, it's their stack size that matters, as that's the most you can win or lose. If you're playing against 20 big blind stacks, it doesn't really matter whether you have 50, 100 or 200 bbs. You're still playing 20 bb ranges
(2) Approaching the final table is the point where ICM is most extreme. Against shorter stacks who understand this and are adjusting accordingly to be much tighter, you should be opening much wider (and calling their shoves tighter) than normal to take advantage of this
(3) ICM affects ranges in other ways too, such as making them more oriented towards high cards, and making hands that would normally strong enough to raise call no longer so (so you induce less)
(4) If you're playing against players who tighten up far too much even accounting for ICM, you can really go wide. We talk about this at length in the "Adjusting for imperfection" section of our satellite book, and while satellites are an extreme ICM example, it also applies in regular tournaments. If you cover everyone behind and they're all playing far too tight it can be profitable to open any two cards, and bet every flop. The important thing to realise is you're doing this because you anticipate way less resistance than normal, which means when you do encounter resistance, don't get stubborn! Even though you're opening a lot wider, you should be calling off a lot tighter.

Thanks for your question, and good luck!

 

[Dara OKearney]

How to stop being bubble boy of satellite?

LOL, no good general answer to that. Can be a case of locking up prematurely, but can be the polar opposite problem of gambling too much on bubbles. We go into what bubble strategy should look like in detail.

It can also just be variance. Football fans with long memories will remember that Liverpool dominated English football in the 80s, winning the title more often than anyone else (5 times in total). The question often asked in quizzes is "Who came second the most often?" The answer again is Liverpool, because on 3 of the 5 occasions they didn't win, they were second (bubbled). The same is true in satellites: the better you are at them the more often you are likely to bubble.

Still sucks when it happens though!

 

[SpanRmonka]

I've recently been playing a quite a few of the 'shootout' satellites on pokerstars. Are there any specific tactics with these that could help?

I feel like my general strategy so far, is to tighten up more than usual 4 handed, but also up the aggression when I do play. One thing I am enjoying is the extra heads up practice I get with these too.

Then if I do win the first shootout to tighten up even more again as the other players can KO themselves quite frequently just when 2 decent hands get dealt. I'm still looking for spots to shove, but also trying to reign it in a bit more than usual, as Top 2 win a ticket and 3rd usually gets almost their money back.
These are only at micro stakes $1 and under.
Thanks

 

[Arnakk2424]

Hi
I currently have 2 of your books (satellite and PKO) but didnt have the time to read the yet.

My question is not really to you but its may be interested to list which poker site allow to "unregister" to get T$ or cash

I was doing a lot of satellite when I was playing for a living like sunday million but a large % of the poker site do not allow it.
On 888poker you have to keep the first one and the second is credited in cash.

 

[Poma Lekain]

LOL, no good general answer to that. Can be a case of locking up prematurely, but can be the polar opposite problem of gambling too much on bubbles. We go into what bubble strategy should look like in detail.

It can also just be variance. Football fans with long memories will remember that Liverpool dominated English football in the 80s, winning the title more often than anyone else (5 times in total). The question often asked in quizzes is "Who came second the most often?" The answer again is Liverpool, because on 3 of the 5 occasions they didn't win, they were second (bubbled). The same is true in satellites: the better you are at them the more often you are likely to bubble.

Still sucks when it happens though!

Thanks for the answer Dara!
The problem is that regardless of the strategy of playing the bubble, I am the last one who did not receive the prize. If I try to sit out, then all the shorties double up, and my stack is eaten. And when I try to confidently enter the prize zone, then I bump into a stronger hand.

 

[Dara OKearney]

If you are on bb next hand and your stack is so low you would probably be out next hand do you call with what you have or let the all in next hand be the decider?

As with everything in poker it's situational, but in general I'd go with any above average hand. Since you're going to be all in next hand, anything above average has higher Ev than the (on average) hand you get next hand.

An exception this would be live with a bb ante. For example, if you have 2 bbs UTG, shove, get isoed by anyone other than the BB, then you can win 2(your stack)+2(caller)+0.5(sb)+1 (bb) +1(ante) = 6.5 bbs


If on the other hand you wait till next hand get in versus a single raiser, you can only win 1(your stack) +1 (raiser) +0.5(sb) +1(ante) = 3.5 bbs

In this spot you should go with any two UTG because the equity of even the worst hand multiplied by 6.5 is greater than the equity of an average hand multiplied by 3.5.

An exception to this would be if it's the stone bubble and someone else is likely to bust this hand, and more than likely to bust in the next orbit. In that case you're better off folding UTG and hoping someone else busts. Even if they don't, if you survive the next hand you are more than likely to cash.

Thanks for your question, and hope this helps!

 

[Dara OKearney]

Hi Dara. Hope you can take the time to read this and respond

I really don't play satellites that much but thought I would start. I want to play higher buy in tourneys but my BR won't let me yet!

This one went really well. This is the literal bubble with 6 players to go and 5 get a ticket. I am pretty sure this was the right thing but with the structure, I started questioning myself. Should I be folding AJo here? ICMizer says to shove with any two here. Does that change with a satellite? I used a satellite configuration (1-5 get 20%) in ICMizer so I think it's set up correctly


Just an unlucky river? My luck always seems to run out badly w/ AJo. I am happy to have to put my money in as a 70% favorite but being the bubble boy is never fun! At least I have learned that I can play in these satellites. But I am sure I need to learn more about how to play them. I'll have to go read your thread and get our book!


Hand History driven straight to this forum with DriveHUD Poker Tracking Software

NL Holdem 0+0 (6000.00BB)
BTN ($49200)
SB ($104502)
BB ($93735)
UTG ($112921)
HJ ($81004)
HERO ($93638)

Dealt to Hero: J♠ A♥

UTG Folds, HJ Folds, HERO Raises To $93638 (allin), BTN Folds, SB Folds, BB Calls $87038

Flop ($192676): 9♦ 4♠ 7♦

Turn ($192676): 9♦ 4♠ 7♦ Q♥

River ($192676): 9♦ 4♠ 7♦ Q♥ 3♦

Spoiler

BB shows: K♦ J♦

BB wins: $192676

Hi,

The shove is theoretically correct, and in practise I'd pretty much always shove this hand, but one word of caution is it always depends on the calling ranges. When you run a spot like this in HRC or ICMIZER, it's important not to just lost at the calculated shoving range but also look at:
(1) The theoretical calling ranges of the players behind, and ask yourself if you think these are actually the calling ranges. In a lot of spots near the bubble of a satellite, you can shove very wide (in theory) because the calling ranges are very tight (in theory) so your shove almost always get thru. In practice, this may not be the case if the players behind don't understand how tight they are supposed to be. It's worth changing the calling ranges in whatever tool you use to what you think they are in practise and rerunning the sim to see what it does to your shoving range (we talk about this extensively in the "Adjusting To Imperfection" chapter of "Poker Satellite Strategy"). You'll quickly find when you do this a few times that shoving ranges are very sensitive to any changes you make to calling ranges in either direction (wider or tighter)
(2) The actual profitability figure for each hand in the shoving range. Just because a hand is profitable doesn't mean you should necessarily take it. The worst hands will be barely profitable: if a hand is only making 0.01% of the prize pool as a shove, it's usually better to wait for a better spot.

Thanks for your question, and hope this helps!

 

[Dara OKearney]

Dara,
I won 2 € 250 tickets into the € 40,000 Supermoon Bounty tournament. The second one expires December 9th. The tournament is on the first Sunday of the month. One re-entry is allowed for the first 8 levels.


My question is this: Would the best strategy be to play very aggressively at the start, and use ticket number 2 to re-enter if I lost all my chips? Or would it be best to play ticket 2 the next month?


Another question: Are you playing in this tournament November 7th? Do many pros play in this type of tournament?


Thank you in advance for your advice.


Howard

Sorry for slow reply, just catching up now.

It's generally never a good idea to reenter PKO unless you bust so fast that there's very little difference. The more people have already busted (and had their bounties claimed), the worse reentering is. So I'd always wait til the next one.

I generally play that tourney as do the other unibet pros but in general far fewer pros play it than most online tourneys of that buyin.

Thanks for your questions!

 

[Dara OKearney]

Hello Dara!

It's final table situation in PokerStars KO $2.2:

View attachment 296727

View attachment 296728

View attachment 296729

Do you have any advices?

Results notwithstanding, it's a good fold pre. JTs needs deep stacks to play well multiway.

Well played!

 

[Dara OKearney]

Hey Dara!! Huge fan of yours, and good luck in the WSOP main event!! I want to pick your brain on PokerStars Grand Tour....not sure how familar you are with it but it's a shootout progressive KO tournament where you can buy-in at any level but need to win your table with a bounty above $50 to cash it out and blinds go up every 4 hands at the 3 lower buy-in levels and 6 hands at the 2 highest levels and you start with roughly 20BB (depends on your bounty)


My questions:
- Many players like to shove first hand. What calling range do you believe is ideal to call a all-in shove first hand if you cover them, and if you don't cover them?
- If you are faced with a call to win 2 or 3 bounties, how wide of a range do you think you'd call with?
- Roughly what VPIP & PFR would you think a winning player would play?
- How aggressive should a player be? More than a standard table or less?

Hi,

Interesting format, I'm not actually familiar with it but based on what you say:
(1) I did a lot of math when I started work on my PKO poker strategy book on precisely this spot: what equity we need to get it all in early. In almost every spot I ran the answer was 46% when we cover, 53% when we don't, so I guess call when you think you have that against the shove range
(2) In these, I imagine it's something like 28/22 for VPIP & PFR
(3) Way more aggressive but also calling off more for bounties. You don't want to hang around when you're short stacked!

Good luck and I hope this helps

 

[Dara OKearney]

Hi Dara,

Before reading your book about PKO, do you recommend a solid knowledge about regular no limit holdem? I can imagine you need to be skilled before you need to know how to adjust for PKO. What do you think?

Thanks, Jasper

Hi Jasper,

Absolutely! That's actually true of all three of my books: they assume you already know how to play poker. They're not for beginners, as they're about the specific adjustments you have to make for PKOs, satellites or ICM. So you need to know already what you're adjusting from.

Thanks for your question!

 

[Tammy]

I thought it would be a good idea to share some of Dara's video content that he has made exclusively for CardsChat!

There's more on the way soon, so make sure to subscribe to CardsChat's YouTube channel so you don't miss any content from Dara or our other Ambassadors. Comment on the videos or post here in the thread with any suggestions you may have for future content! Another one on the way from Dara on January 30!

In this video Dara teaches you how to calculate your "Chances of Cashing" in a satellite tournament (or COC) - one of the most important concepts to learn in satellite play.

And here Dara explains that your go-to strategies for "regular" tournaments tend to get turned on their head in satellite games, going over some unusual bubble spots and how your natural instinct may not be the correct play when it comes to satellites.

 

[Dara OKearney]

Hi Dara

Thank you for being part of this amazing community and for sharing your knowledge and skillsets.
My question relates to off table pursuits and time away from poker that may/may not benefit your on table performance - is there any tips you can share with ways you have managed your upswings and downswings with poker throughout your career to date? Hobbies, ways to relax, methods you may have used to focus the mind?

Really keen to know your thoughts on this and i wish you continued success at this great game.

AR AR AR AR

Pirateglenn

Very interesting question. I talk about this at length in a forthcoming MindsetDesign podcast but the cliffs are:
(1) On days I'm playing I try to follow a good routine that gets me ready to play. This involves starting my day with a run to get the blood flowing while listening to a poker podcast to get my mind thinking about poker. After doing anything else that needs to be done (social media stuff, email, coaching etc) I have a healthy breakfast. Then before I start play, I meditate for ten minutes, doing some breathing exercises to get me alert, and then review some recent study notes to reenforce what I've been studying recently and again warm up my poker brain. Then I start my online session
(2) On days I'm not playing I still try to have a similar routine, but instead of playing I study (I aim for 4 20-30 minute bursts rather than longer continuous sessions) during which I take notes of all the key takeaways (which I will then review before playing next), interspersed with content creation, writing or any other work I need to do

For relaxation I don't really do much beyond Netflix

Speaking of other tasks, I'm doing commentary on the WSOP circuit event for the next three days, so tune in on Twitch if you want some live thoughts on strategy on hands as they happen!

 

[pirateglenn]

Thank you Dara

I will definitely tune into Twitch - thats for recommending that and thank you for replying to my question - your information and thoughts are really beneficial to not just myself but anyone else thinking of taking poker more seriously and looking to have a healthy poker lifestyle away from the tables that can benefit our play.

Best Wishes

Glenn

Very interesting question. I talk about this at length in a forthcoming MindsetDesign podcast but the cliffs are:
(1) On days I'm playing I try to follow a good routine that gets me ready to play. This involves starting my day with a run to get the blood flowing while listening to a poker podcast to get my mind thinking about poker. After doing anything else that needs to be done (social media stuff, email, coaching etc) I have a healthy breakfast. Then before I start play, I meditate for ten minutes, doing some breathing exercises to get me alert, and then review some recent study notes to reenforce what I've been studying recently and again warm up my poker brain. Then I start my online session
(2) On days I'm not playing I still try to have a similar routine, but instead of playing I study (I aim for 4 20-30 minute bursts rather than longer continuous sessions) during which I take notes of all the key takeaways (which I will then review before playing next), interspersed with content creation, writing or any other work I need to do

For relaxation I don't really do much beyond Netflix

Speaking of other tasks, I'm doing commentary on the WSOP circuit event for the next three days, so tune in on Twitch if you want some live thoughts on strategy on hands as they happen!

 

[Dara OKearney]

Hello Dara!

When I want to play some tournament on PokerStars, I always look for a satellites to that tournament. And last time I like to play 4-max Hyper-turbo 2x-shootout sats (max 16 players and 500 starting chips and 2 tickets + rest of money in prize). For example Bounty Builder KO $11 35K Guaranteed sat I can play for $1.45 only. First stage - 4 tables 4max shootout and 2d stage - 1 table 4max and 2 tickets + some money for 3d player.
When I played that sats I see 2 style of playing - TAG and LAG, and both styles won.
What do you think, what style is more profitable for that sats?
Do you have any advices about tactics or strategy for playing?

Thanks.

As a general rule the TAG strategy should work better in satellites, but as ever it depends. If everyone else is playing too tight, the LAG style will be very effective. On the other hand if everyone else is playing too loose, the TAG style is even more effective.

Good luck!

 

[Dara OKearney]

Hi Dara,

Well I finally got to do it- here is me about to fold AA when locked up in a €250 ticket satellite

Congratulations on the third book. I am just getting into it but it is illuminating so far.

A quick question re payout structures. You discuss the difference between flat and top heavy payout structures. While in smaller field sizes I can reasonably judge how flat or top heavy they are, in larger fields I struggle. Do you have any heuristics for this?

Well done on the fold!

Very interesting question. the easiest heuristic for 1000+ runner fields is to look at the ratio between 1st to 5th, and 5th to 9th. Usually these are around the same and in the 3-5 region. so 3 or less is flat, 4 is average, and 5 or more is top heavy.