Satellites
At every poker tournament you will see satellites being run. Basically, a satellite is a small tournament that awards a seat in a bigger tournament to the winner or winners, but not always because satellites are also played for cash.
A single table satellite (STS) is a one table mini-tournament. Players pay a set buy-in and the prize pool is fixed. Either the winner gets all the money or there may be prizes for first and second and online even third gets some cash. At major tournaments they play STSs for cash or for tournament “chits” for a bigger multi-table tournament (MTT). They way this works is that let’s say ten players put up $110 for a seat in a STS, the winner will receive an entry into a $1,000 MTT and the house makes the $10 per player. For $110 you can win a seat in a $1,000 buy-in tournament.
At major tournaments you will also see Super Satellites; these are multi-table events giving out seats in a bigger MTT. Often super satellites are played for the main event. So when the main event is a $10,000 buy-in, supers may run from $200 to $1,000. Often super satellites are rebuy tournaments and big ones can give away dozens of seats to the main event. Mega-satellites are simply big buy-in supers; at WPT and WSOP events the mega-satellites are $1,000 for the $10,000 main event.
The bottom-line on satellites is that they fall into two categories. First, the cash single table satellites, which run all day, every day online. Second, the satellites that award entries to bigger tournaments, which provide an inexpensive shot for players to play in a big event.
You heard often about a new player going deep in a major tournament after they “satellited in”, this is how they did it. Satellites are a great way for beginning players to “take a shot” at playing with the big boys without investing their whole bankroll.
-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #69
