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

[Dara OKearney]

Hi Dara,

How do you approach Satellites from a Bankroll Management perspective? Normally I just take a 200ish average buy-in rule for MTTs (also would love to hear about your own direct buy-in BRM strategy), but I'm unsure how to incorporate satties into this.

Would be interesting to hear your opinion on this. Feel like satellites are often overlooked in articles on BRM.

Cheers!

Very interesting question. The answer depends on a number of factors. In theory, since the "prize" to a satellite is entry to another tournament, you need whatever bankroll you'd require to buy in to that tournament if your main game is grinding satellites. However, for one off shots that's not the case, or if you have some way of monetizing seats (either by cashing them in, selling %'s or swaps). But in essence if you're grinding $100 satellites to $1ks, and have no way of cashing in any of the equity (other than cashing inthe target tournament), you'd need 200k bankroll rather than 20k.

Thank you for your question, I hope this answers it!

 

[Nr98]

Very interesting question. The answer depends on a number of factors. In theory, since the "prize" to a satellite is entry to another tournament, you need whatever bankroll you'd require to buy in to that tournament if your main game is grinding satellites. However, for one off shots that's not the case, or if you have some way of monetizing seats (either by cashing them in, selling %'s or swaps). But in essence if you're grinding $100 satellites to $1ks, and have no way of cashing in any of the equity (other than cashing inthe target tournament), you'd need 200k bankroll rather than 20k.

Thank you for your question, I hope this answers it!

Yeah that sounds like fair advice. Makes a lot of sense to keep the main tourney in mind for BRM. I'll probably try to satellite my way into my usual tourneys for now. Feel like they're so often hugely missplayed. Lots of free money to pick up there in the micros/lowstakes.

Thanks for your answer! Cheers

 

[Dara OKearney]

So when you winn the ticket , do u sell it or play the tournament for wich you've wonn the ticket?
Is the player pool softer compared to regular tournaments?

Hi,

I always play the tournament for which I've won ticket. The satellites are nearly always a lot softer than the tournament itself.

Thanks for your question!

 

[nyeesssss]

can your book on this subject be bought in pdf format? , i live in Serbia and shiping is pretty much not possible.

 

[Dara OKearney]

Hi Dara, I play a lot of low stake MTT tournaments and I find it difficult sometimes because players risk aversion is almost zero so there are always idiots that go all in from the start with crap hands. And even when you're holding a pat hand, 4 other players jump in and some yoyo wins with a 2 6 for example.

How do you handle your pace in these types of situations? Especially early in the game!

Hi,

It's certainly tilting when you lose a 4 way all in to something like six deuce. I try to focus on the fact that if I keep getting it in ahead or with the requisite equity then I will win in the long run even if there will be lots of annoying beats along the way.


Better luck avoiding the beats!

 

[Mr_RichRich]

hi ,
1st thank you so much for being here.
i read many of your answers above its so helpful , but i have a question for you ,
what is your bankroll portion specified for satellites as a pro, and what it should be for a recreational player?

 

[Dara OKearney]

Hi Dara, do you play at Pokerstars?
I want to start playing satellites only and start with a BR of $500 (I will buy your book).

Which MTT's do you prefer to play on Stars in the range from $10 - $100 ? I do not like turbos myself.

Hi,

Yes I play at Stars rthough not as much as I used to. Most of my online volume these days is on other sites.

Like you I avoid the turbos. My favourite tournaments right now are PKOs (the subject of my next book) but they're very much a specialist subject. If you don't like PKOs, I'd stick to the Bigs.

Thanks for your question and good luck!

 

[Dara OKearney]

Hi Dara this is Liam Neville the free lance poker dealer. I've had this question in my mind and never got to ask it. So I think poker is a great game, of course people can make money from it, but the social aspect is amazing as well. When I deal at tourneys I see maybe 5% of the field being female players who's ages range from 20s to 70s and some really good players. Same with younger people you might see 5 to 10% at best under the age of 30.
How do we as players and a poker community promote the game to females and also younger from 18 to 30. I feel we are nearly a decade past the poker boom, but if done right we could see another one if we got females and younger players to come in. There is always a stigma with poker being gambling, which is definitely a concern, and also people with addictive personalities could become heavy gamblers. I think the strategy of poker is multi layered and also a lot of thinking involved, the social interaction of playing with someone live compared to online has huge benefits and get more of a live tell and read off players. Would be very interested to hear your thoughts. You are an ambassador and gentleman of the game keep up the great work you and David.

Hi Liam,

I could probably write a book on this but I'll summarise the main points here. Live poker has a particular problem attracting female players: The whole culture surrounding it is very macho and a turn off for many women (by contrast females are much better represented online, where they can be anonymous. I think that's the main point that needs to be addressed: making the culture more female friendly.

On the age thing, poker seems to have lost a generation. I think the poker industry has done a very bad job marketing to that lost generation and I'm not really sure what can be done about it now.

Hope to see you dealing to me again in 2020!

Great to see you here.

 

[maniac]

Satties and Dons

Hey Dara,

I enjoy reading your newsletter and listening to your podcast. I especially like your book on satties with Barry, which Collin recommended to me in his coaching and which I have just finished reading. I would like to ask you a few questions to make sure I understood everything correctly.
I play all kinds of tournaments myself and I always avoided satties before reading your book. I try to apply the knowledge I learned from your book to satties but especially to dons.

So I want to know when exactly do we stop collecting chips?
If I understood it correctly I calculate the ACS, that would be for a 6-Max Don on Ipoker 6 Players * 1500 chips = 9000 chips in the game
9000 chips / 3 payouts = 3000
3000 * 0.7 = 2100 chips.
If I have calculated this correctly, then I am locked up at 3000 chips and at 2100 I play a very tight range as you describe it, which you justify with the COC. Please correct me if I am wrong.

The second question is, if I fall below this number of chips, do I have to collect chips again until I am locked up? I often find myself in a situation where I have the chips I need, but then during the course of the tournament I drop below the number of chips.
If I understand this approach of yours correctly, I have to play hands again but only if I'm forced to by the situation at the table. If I'm in the money bubble and the distance of players to the bubble is significantly larger than to the players who are not in the money, there would be no point in playing for chips again.

The third question is about reducing the variance in satties. Do you think that any kind of suff increases the variance? I think that on the low limits in dons or satties many opponents still fold too much on cbets. Where do you draw the line? Is the cbet in dons then a population play?

The fourth question refers to the adaptation in the game against maniacs. I think especially in Dons or satties there are a lot of calls on the low limits that are way too wide. You can't call wide anyway due to the icm according to that you can't shove wide too. You explained that in your book on page 76. But if I am right, you have changed the range of the BU and BB but only your shoving range in MP2. Then shouldn't the BU and BB ranges in the lower part of the table be wider?
I also think it's great how you explain the adjustment of maniac and nits afterwards.

I would like to thank you again for the great book, and I hope you are not angry with me because this text has become a bit long. Maybe some of these suggestions help you somehow. I'm looking forward to your book about pko's and would like to know if there is already a rough date for it?

Greetings from Colonge

ben.nie

 

[Dara OKearney]

can your book on this subject be bought in pdf format? , i live in Serbia and shiping is pretty much not possible.

Hi,

It's available in a number of electronic formats (Kindle, Itunes, Google Play, Kobo, Nook) and as an audiobook but not PDF unfortunately.

Thanks for your question!

 

[NauGad]

Poker

Tell me, what can you say new about MTT tournaments? What do you know that the regulars don’t know?

 

[D_godfather]

Thanks for the thread. Bought the book recently. Very interesting read.

Once you had the basics of the game understood sufficiently to beat home games/local pubs etc, what did you find pushed your game on to more advanced levels - peer discussions, own hand analysis, pressing for more knowledge on the maths & equity, volume/experience?

 

[D_godfather]

Dara,

You have mentioned a few times you used to enjoy the splash format. Not sure if it is a recent change now, but registration ends 35 minutes before the rebuy ends.

If very short stacked in this 35 min period with very high blinds, a rebuy can be as little as 1 Big blind, or even less. Is it appropriate to keep rebuying to get to the top up? Is survival alone sufficient or do you need a bit of a stack to go with the add on/top up?

I have been rebuying, but if you cant get any run this can add up. My instinct is that there is often a huge amount of dead money, say 40 runners left out of 170, so its worth it, but is it?

And if in the 35 min of survival, do we seek to survive with min number of buy ins? or should we double rebuy in your experience?

 

[Bird173]

I must admit I'm not familiar with the format. Are they winner takes all (advances)?

I play these a lot hyper turbos with 16 player 2xshootout 2 seats awarded

 

[Bird173]

Just finished reading the whole thread very great stuff! If I could get one question in it would have to be this. ICM it’s a concept that I think I understand but I know I don’t really. What is the best way to work on understanding and hopefully mastering this concept?

 

[jirasuonna]

I am posting this on all the Ask Me Anything forum to try to see if there is a consensus or difference of opinion among the pros answering questions on CardsChat. I guess for this one any difference between satellites and MTTs would be useful.
*********************************


I have been looking for information about considerations for re-buys, add-ons, late registration. Almost all comments in forums seem to be in favor of add-ons, with logic like "Why would you give your opponents an advantage over you?"

I will preface this with my bias. I don't like the idea of any of them and would prefer if none of them existed. If I had my way every tournament would be a freeze-out, but that based on a style preference. I feel that you can apply a little more pressure if the villain can't re-buy ad nauseum.

I understand that re-buys and add-ons help the casino meet guarantees. (It is frustrating when you think you have found a bargain tournament, and re-buys are filling out that guarantee without increasing the prize pool.)

I understand that in live tournaments re-buys, and add-ons make sense because you have to travel to the casino and getting knocked out and going home empty handed sucks.

I play exclusively online. There is always another tournament.

Re-buys only make sense to me if you are knocked out in the very early rounds. Any later than that and you are just buying into another tournament at a significant disadvantage. This amounts to late registration, which only makes sense to me if you think you have a monstrous edge, and it is worth your while to save a little time by not playing the early rounds.

Add-ons are a weird concept to me. You are effectively chopping your return on investment in half. If the add-on, significantly improves your odds of winning, I can see where it might make sense, however, the ones I have played don't usually have a huge amount of chips; usually x1-x2 the chips of the initial buy-in. A couple levels and it will be insignificant. For it to be useful you have increase it exponentially, if you are willing to play that way, it may be more useful to attack peoples' add-on with your short stack.

This got a little verbose. It seems that re-buys, add-ons, and late registration are -EV options, because they diminish your ROI. They are only useful with regard to time considerations, or if the tournament has some value to you other than pure monetary reward.

Am I being naive here? Is there a magic formula for determining when to get an add-on?Or should I just keep going for extreme long shots by refusing re-buys and add-ons?

Thanks!

 

[natelearnspoker]

Hi Dara, I played two satellites yesterday for the first time and I got close to getting tickets but I messed in a couple spots tangling up in a couple big pot confrontations.

I’m fairly good at huge MTTs and pretty aggressive as a player. Satellites are different in that first and tenth place are no different so I’m working on surviving with chips. For someone who often quickly amasses chips and is used to aggressive tournament play, what do you recommend doing to survive til the bubble?

 

[Bird173]

I am posting this on all the Ask Me Anything forum to try to see if there is a consensus or difference of opinion among the pros answering questions on CardsChat. I guess for this one any difference between satellites and MTTs would be useful.
*********************************


I have been looking for information about considerations for re-buys, add-ons, late registration. Almost all comments in forums seem to be in favor of add-ons, with logic like "Why would you give your opponents an advantage over you?"

I will preface this with my bias. I don't like the idea of any of them and would prefer if none of them existed. If I had my way every tournament would be a freeze-out, but that based on a style preference. I feel that you can apply a little more pressure if the villain can't re-buy ad nauseum.

I understand that re-buys and add-ons help the casino meet guarantees. (It is frustrating when you think you have found a bargain tournament, and re-buys are filling out that guarantee without increasing the prize pool.)

I understand that in live tournaments re-buys, and add-ons make sense because you have to travel to the casino and getting knocked out and going home empty handed sucks.

I play exclusively online. There is always another tournament.

Re-buys only make sense to me if you are knocked out in the very early rounds. Any later than that and you are just buying into another tournament at a significant disadvantage. This amounts to late registration, which only makes sense to me if you think you have a monstrous edge, and it is worth your while to save a little time by not playing the early rounds.

Add-ons are a weird concept to me. You are effectively chopping your return on investment in half. If the add-on, significantly improves your odds of winning, I can see where it might make sense, however, the ones I have played don't usually have a huge amount of chips; usually x1-x2 the chips of the initial buy-in. A couple levels and it will be insignificant. For it to be useful you have increase it exponentially, if you are willing to play that way, it may be more useful to attack peoples' add-on with your short stack.

This got a little verbose. It seems that re-buys, add-ons, and late registration are -EV options, because they diminish your ROI. They are only useful with regard to time considerations, or if the tournament has some value to you other than pure monetary reward.

Am I being naive here? Is there a magic formula for determining when to get an add-on?Or should I just keep going for extreme long shots by refusing re-buys and add-ons?

Thanks!

Very interesting read I’m interested to hear Dara’s take on this. I always buy the add on automatically but what you are saying has some merit. I won’t generally go for the rebuys although at times it seems correct

 

[steve01991]

best time to play

when is the best time to play in a tournament? morning, afternoon or at night?

 

[Dara OKearney]

hi ,
1st thank you so much for being here.
i read many of your answers above its so helpful , but i have a question for you ,
what is your bankroll portion specified for satellites as a pro, and what it should be for a recreational player?

Hi,

As a pro I have a 2000 buyin rule for the regular satellites I grind (so if you play $10 sats that's $20000 bankroll required).

For recreationals, the considerations are different: just commit how ever much you can afford to or be comfortable with losing. Good luck and thanks for your question!

 

[Dara OKearney]

Hey Dara,

I enjoy reading your newsletter and listening to your podcast. I especially like your book on satties with Barry, which Collin recommended to me in his coaching and which I have just finished reading. I would like to ask you a few questions to make sure I understood everything correctly.
I play all kinds of tournaments myself and I always avoided satties before reading your book. I try to apply the knowledge I learned from your book to satties but especially to dons.

So I want to know when exactly do we stop collecting chips?
If I understood it correctly I calculate the ACS, that would be for a 6-Max Don on Ipoker 6 Players * 1500 chips = 9000 chips in the game
9000 chips / 3 payouts = 3000
3000 * 0.7 = 2100 chips.
If I have calculated this correctly, then I am locked up at 3000 chips and at 2100 I play a very tight range as you describe it, which you justify with the COC. Please correct me if I am wrong.

The second question is, if I fall below this number of chips, do I have to collect chips again until I am locked up? I often find myself in a situation where I have the chips I need, but then during the course of the tournament I drop below the number of chips.
If I understand this approach of yours correctly, I have to play hands again but only if I'm forced to by the situation at the table. If I'm in the money bubble and the distance of players to the bubble is significantly larger than to the players who are not in the money, there would be no point in playing for chips again.

The third question is about reducing the variance in satties. Do you think that any kind of suff increases the variance? I think that on the low limits in dons or satties many opponents still fold too much on cbets. Where do you draw the line? Is the cbet in dons then a population play?

The fourth question refers to the adaptation in the game against maniacs. I think especially in Dons or satties there are a lot of calls on the low limits that are way too wide. You can't call wide anyway due to the icm according to that you can't shove wide too. You explained that in your book on page 76. But if I am right, you have changed the range of the BU and BB but only your shoving range in MP2. Then shouldn't the BU and BB ranges in the lower part of the table be wider?
I also think it's great how you explain the adjustment of maniac and nits afterwards.

I would like to thank you again for the great book, and I hope you are not angry with me because this text has become a bit long. Maybe some of these suggestions help you somehow. I'm looking forward to your book about pko's and would like to know if there is already a rough date for it?

Greetings from Colonge

ben.nie

Hi Bennie,

Thanks for the kind words: delighted to hear you like my content.

Yout COC calculation and interpretation is correct in example (1).

For the second question, it is indeed increasingly common these days for bubbles to go on longer (people are a bit more ICM aware and there's less punting as a result) so you can go from locked up to back in the mix. If this happens, you hae to readjust your strategy and be prepared to take more risks selectively. I say selectively because fold equity trumps everything else late on in satellites: you are better off shoving a weak hand into player(s) likely to fold a lot than calling off a relatively strong hand.

Third question: when redicing variance I defend my blinds tighter (staying away from hands likely to bleed chips postflop, like suited connectors and easily dominated hands), bluff less in unclear spots (however if you have identified the population overfolds in specific spots like to cbets, then by all means keep them coming), and tighten up reshoving ranges.As a general rule small stabs like cbets and steals preflop for a small amount of your stack are fine, and moving all in in clearly profitable spots is also fine (maximising fold equity). What you want to avoid are plays where you end up committing a lot of chips to realize equity: that's why I stay away from suited connectors. Often they flop enough equity to make folding the flop unpleasant, yet force you to commit more and more chips on later streets to realise that equity.

Fourth question: you are correct: it looks like there's a typo on page 76. The button and BB ranges should be wider.

Thanks for the great questions and hoping to get the PKO book by end of June.

 

[Dara OKearney]

Tell me, what can you say new about MTT tournaments? What do you know that the regulars don’t know?

Just how extreme ICM is at the end of satellites and what the practical adjustments that need to be made. It never fails to surprise me how badly good mtt regs often play in satellites.

 

[Luan]

hello my name is luan i would like to know how do i win satellites hyper turbo? I always play at the very beginning but I crash in the final tournament and blow up the satellite.

 

[varainv]

Hi

NICE!!!

 

[D_godfather]

Dara,

You have mentioned a few times you used to enjoy the splash format. Not sure if it is a recent change now, but registration ends 35 minutes before the rebuy ends.

If very short stacked in this 35 min period with very high blinds, a rebuy can be as little as 1 Big blind, or even less. Is it appropriate to keep rebuying to get to the top up? Is survival alone sufficient or do you need a bit of a stack to go with the add on/top up?

I have been rebuying, but if you cant get any run, during the 30 min prior to top up, this can add up. My instinct is that there is often a huge amount of dead money, say 40 runners left out of 170, so its worth it, but is it?

And if in the 35 min of survival, do we seek to survive with min number of buy ins? or should we double rebuy in your experience?

Just wondering if Dara has any views on this,thank you.