Tournament poker is an expensive affair. Buy-ins can pile up quickly, especially when players are in a downswing, and often times, that $1,100 Main Event that you had your eye on for weeks is suddenly pulling a bit at the purse strings. That is where satellites come into play to help those who are looking to get into some big events on the cheap. Learn more in our breakdown below.
What is a Satellite in Poker?
A satellite operates very much like a regular multi-table tournament, except for one major difference: instead of playing for prize money payouts at the end, everyone is instead playing for a seat into a bigger tournament. In terms of examples of satellites, the easiest one is the $10,000 buy-in World Series of Poker Main Event.
Every year, there are several live $1,100 satellites run at the WSOP where the top 10% of the field all earn a massively discounted ticket to poker’s biggest event. Say the field is 100 players. In a normal event, the top 10 would be in the money, and would all play out for an increasing prize scale with every elimination. However, in the satellite, the top 10 will all earn the same prize, a Main Event ticket valued at $10,000. It doesn’t matter if you are the massive chip leader at the time or the shortest of the stacks remaining. Everyone earns the same prize according to the terms of the satellite.
You can find satellites virtually anywhere you can play poker. Many casinos will offer multi table or single table satellites for some of their bigger events. Usually, a single table satellite will have anywhere from 6-10 players, and the seat will go to the winner of that table.
Several online sites can also take you to the biggest stages in live poker. PokerStars routinely runs satellites for the biggest EPT Main Events on the calendar, while partypoker has a partnership with the WPT. So there, you can win seats to WPT Global Events and other major events, often for just a few dollars. And 888poker also runs online satellites for their Live Events, such as Madrid earlier this year.
Satellite Strategy
Playing on the bubble of a big multi-table tournament is often an art more than a science, and you could argue that there are no bigger bubbles than those on the edge of a satellite payout. That is because, in a normal MTT, the bubble is for the minimum possible cash, while in a satellite, the bubble is on what is essentially the first-place payout. As a result, you will often see many players at the same table fold down to as little as one or two big blinds, where in a normal tournament, they would not allow their stacks to get so low.
This means that many of the medium and big stacks will be upping their aggression when they get closer to the bubble in a satellite, as players will often be hesitant to get involved in any pots that could put a dent into what is at the moment a satellite winning stack for them. However, some big stacks take the opposite approach. Many times you will see the chip leader of a satellite leave the tournament area completely in order to sit out and earn their seat. The logic behind this is simple. There is no benefit to being the biggest stack when the satellite ends, so essentially you are only potentially hurting yourself by playing in hands near the satellite bubble.
Famous Satellite Stories
Over the years, there have been several examples of players making huge televised final tables, and sometimes even winning them, by getting in for a fraction of the cost thanks to satellites. Some of those stories are listed below.
Chris Moneymaker
The man who started the poker boom in 2003 turned out to be a true rags to riches story. As many know, this is of course, Chris Moneymaker, who won the WSOP Main Event for $2,500,000.
Famously, the accountant from Tennessee was playing in his first ever live poker tournament, and unlike many of his competitors, he did not put down the full $10,000 buy-in. Rather, Moneymaker earned his massive payday by winning a measly $39 satellite on the website that would one day become his sponsor, PokerStars. After busting the likes of Johnny Chan, Phil Ivey, and Sammy Farha, the former accountant had become one of poker’s biggest stars overnight, and it was all thanks to the satellite that got him in.
Tom McEvoy
The WSOP didn’t start running satellites into their Main Event until the early 1980’s when they realized they needed to do something in order to bulk up the number of entries. Tom McEvoy had just been playing live tournament poker for a year when he took the WSOP by storm in 1983. First, he won a $1,000 Limit Hold’em event for $117,000. Despite that six figure score, McEvoy displayed proper bankroll management by satellite into the Main Event. He would go on to make history as the first satellite winner to win the Main Event, earning $540,000, which is still the biggest score of his career.
David Docherty
While not as big of a story as Moneymaker or McEvoy, David Docherty recently made history in the spring of 2023 when he took down the biggest Irish Poker Open ever run, earning the top place prize of €365,000. He also did it not for the full buy-in of €1,100, but for a mere €109, having earned his seat through an online satellite, also from PokerStars. That final table included famed Irish pro Andy Black, who final tabled the Main Event at the World Series of Poker in 2005, earning $1,750,000.
If you want to take a big shot, but don’t quite have the finances to warrant it, do some research and find out if your casino or online room is offering satellites.