Poker Steps and Satellites
December 5th, 2008In a recent conversation with a friend, I admitted that I was having trouble getting passed a certain step in a satellite program. Since I couldn’t beat the 3rd level out of 6 levels, he rationalized by saying that I was unlikely to keep winning a string of sit and go’s on my $7 investment.
So, while it seems, to a spectator, that I should be lucky to make it to a $2,000 tournament on $7, my argument was that with every stage of the satellite that I am at, I have as good of a chance t win it as I did the initial stage. i.e., my chances to win step 1 approximately the same as they are of winning step 3.
The variables are obviously the skill levels of my opponents, and perhaps money pressure. Step 3 costs $82 to register if you are not participating in the satellite program, so you must assume that people participating at step 3 either have more money or are more comfortable playing at higher stakes than someone who started at step 1, or they started at step 1 as well and must be better than average because they advanced.
But, since I’ve only invested $7, do I have less of a chance to advance than someone who paid $82 to begin at step 3? Of course not.
As long as I am not intimidated by the fact that I am playing at a much higher cost than my investment, there is no reason to believe that the money affects the poker play. I still only have $7 to lose, and I win nothing until I complete the satellite system, so what difference is playing step one or step five?
Sure, it is hard to win 6 sit and go poker tournaments in a row, but there are varying safety nets involved. Usually first and second place advance to the next level and 3rd, 4th and sometimes even 5th get to retry the current step or go back to the previous round. So you don’t have to win every single poker tournament to stay in the hunt, you just have to at least stay in the top four or five. I’ll risk $7 on this multiple times and feel comfortable doing so at every step.
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