No more satellites for me

Today I woke up with a positive attitude about NOT having an entry to the $1,000 event. Maybe this meant the field for the satellites would be weaker than usual, as the better players will be in the tournament.

I was up before 8 AM but not much was stirring in the poker room. Only three open tables, but already a wait list. By noon, the wait list was several hours long, but still only five tables in play.

Finally, around 2.30 pm, they set up a table for the Step 3 Satellite. First place winning a $5,000 entry, and second and third winning a $2,500 entry.

Although we began with $2,000 in chips (an improvement over the $1,500 we got in the earlier stages) it is still a bit of a turkey shoot. Randomness and luck play too large a role for these kind of prizes I think. With $10,000 in prizes on the line and only 1 table in play, why does the structure have to be such that it will be over in 1.5 to 2 hours?

Within an hour the blinds were $100/$200 and I picked up 99 in mid position. My stack was less than when I began ($1,525) and somewhat below average size of $2,500, as two players had already been eliminated.

To play any pot necessitated a raise – to around $600. So the moment you decide to open with a hand, you are now almost committed to the pot and hence are putting your event on the line.

Not really enjoyable poker but it is the nature of the beast, and it is the same for all of us.

So I raised to $600 and the big blind called. He had been deep stack till the previous hand, where he had lost around $2,000 by calling an all-in river bet from a shorter stack on a gross misread.

The flop was K74 rainbow. The BB checked to me. I had about $1,000 left. With all these considerations, what should I do? Should I try to check the hand down to the river? Should I bet? Mark you, any bet by me pot commits me, if I am not already pot committed.

Anyhow, I bet $400, and the BB raised for the rest of his chips to $850 total. I called, and turned slightly green when he turned over a starting pair of sevens, giving him a flopped set, and me looking for two outs (specifically either 9) to win the hand.

My fairy godmother went MIA and I lost the pot, and a few hands later went out with another player to the same guy who splayed a full house of Aces and Kings on the table, handily beating my two pairs of Aces and Kings with a Queen kicker.

Considering the entry to this satellite was “worth” a cool $1,050, I really did not feel I got my money’s worth from the experience. Most likely, had I been able to buy into the $1,000 entry event, I would have lasted much longer than an hour, for no other reason than a slower blind structure, and a much larger starting stack size.

Meanwhile, the $1,000 event is under way - with a maxed out field of 300 players, and first place a cool $81,188.

Based on our observations yesterday and today, Dan and I have already decided not to try to win any more Satellites. Instead we will focus on cash games and if I get hot enough, I can subsidize the cost of my entry fee into one of the two remaining events.