How to Make Money Playing Satellite Poker Tournaments

Most poker players over look satellites unless it is a tournament that they want to qualify for. But, if you are a tournament player, there is a lot of money to be made playing in online satellites and often live satellites for bigger events as well, such as WSOP tournaments or WPT events at the Bellagio and so on.

For now, let's just take a quick look at online satellites.

Every poker site will offer a multitude of satellites for a multitude of tournaments. One of the keys is that you will be paid with an entry into a bigger buy in tournament if you win the satellites. However, you can always 'un-register' for the larger tournament if you win. Depending upon the site, they will usually put some kind of ticket or tournament dollars into your account and then you can use this money to play any other tournament at any other time. You do not have to play in the tournament that you won the satellite for.

You cannot cash this 'tournament' money out as cash, but you can use it to enter tournaments that will pay cash and you can use it at any time, there is no time frame expiration. So, in other words, you could win 10 satellites for the same tournament and simply bank all the money, using it later at your leisure in games that you will win actual cash. This is a great leverage on your money.

I will often times find a satellite that I like the format of and play it over and over again. A couple of weeks ago on PStars, I found a $55 satellite for a $216 buy in. I played in 4 of these and won entry every time, so my investment was $220 and my gross winnings were $864 giving me a tidy profit of $644.

Plus, you don't have to WIN in a satellite, you just have to finish in the top number of places. So, if I didn't have a great tournament and would not have had a shot to make the final table had the tournament been played all the way through, it doesn't matter as long as I finished in the top 20 or 30 or whatever it was in that tournament. You don't have to dominate, you only have to finish 'good enough'

One of the tricks is picking the right tournaments to play. Stay away from the satellites where there are 800 people playing for 20 seats. These are tough and they are usually very low buy in compared to the entry fee you will win: something like $5.50 for a $216 seat will usually attract way too many players for too few seats. Your chances of winning a seat are not good enough.

I usually find a sweet spot in mid level type entries, like $55 for a $240 seat or $7.70 for a $55 seat, and so on. I also look for a larger number of guaranteed spots as compared to the amount of entries that tournament seems to be getting. On PStars last week I found a tournament that was costing me $16.50 for a $55 entry. There were 20 seats guaranteed and there were around 30-35 players entered in each tournament. Those are pretty good odds and I won a seat in all 5 tournaments that I played in. Look for these kinds of satellites rather than the long shot ones.

It takes some time to scroll through the hundreds of tournaments available as satellites on online sites.However, once you know what you are looking for, these can be a very profitable spend of your money and pretty easy to win as well.

How-to-Make-Money-Playing-Satellite-Poker-Tournaments

Chris Wilcox is the author of the 224 page No B.S. Guide to Winning Online No Limit Texas Hold'em available as an ebook from http://www.internetpokercoach.com and is the author of a daily blog with over 600 quality articles on all things poker related.
He has over 10 years experience in playing online and live tournament poker including deep runs at the WSOP. Chris is also one of the foremost Poker Coaches in the country, providing one on one live coaching for poker players wanting to take their game to the next level.

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