Hi All!

I have found now on PokersStars that satellites in general now finish way into the start of the target tournament. Should you still not have a choice of satellites that start early enough that you start at the begining of the target event? I am finding most satellietes on the site are finishing at least 45 minutes into the start of the main tournament and often over an hour into it. Because of the auto-register feature you cannot wait until the tournament is next on and play it from the start.

I feel this puts you at a disadvantage to players starting at the beginning and gives you less time to make chips before your M value or blind to stack ratio is making you make more chance moves.

For me this spoils the satellies and if they are large satellites you can still play for severl hours and then go straight into the target tournament without a proper break.

If PokerStars want to run this practise no problem but why can they not run more satellites that also finish in time for the main event. For instance I look at a target tournament I want to play which only havs 3/4 satellites all starting within or close to within an hour of the target tournament.

I like to stick to one site for the rewards but this is making me look elsewhere if I want to play satellites. Also for satellites that finish in the Sunday millions (while this one does actually have more in advance satellites, however all the coin entires finish into the main tournament) I have a nightmare with as I play UK time I would idealy like to play in the following weeks main tournament as I would like to book the following day off work as the game runs past the time I start work the next day. However the auto-entry into a game already running means I cannot book the following day off.

If any of you agree on my points or don't I would be interested in your feed back. If you do agree, it would be worth like me contacting PokerStars to request they have more satellites starting that finish in advance of the start of the target event (whether or not you can unregister). The vast majority by design seem to start you well into the main event if you place. A bit more balance would be good.

Good luck at the tables!

PJ

Thanks, I was sure it wasn't just me!

What do you mean? There's tons sattys that start/end a long time before the main tournaments starts, in pretty much all buy in ranges.

Just an example is the satty to the sunday million, they go every day 7 days a week at 20:30 CET (think this is 19:30 UK time)
(yes, if you play this one on sunday, you will be directly bought in, but just play the satty on monday-saturday and take the $T then)

You might not have overwhelming amount of sattys to "sunday kickoff $109" but you have other sattys to other events that cost $109 which means these sattys indirectly takes you to that main tournament. It is the same thing on pretty much all stakes as far as i know

Or are you refering to the "deadline" sattys, because they are called deadline for that exact reason

Sattys are meant to get lower stakes players into bigger buyins than their bankroll can afford and everyone wins from that. Not very beneficial when small stakes players just grind them and take the T$ that's one less low stakes player in the target event so doesn't seem a issue to me for that reason.

Hi Xize

The Sunday Millions is different as you say there are many satellites for that (I was more referring to the coins satellites on that particular case which seem to be a good shot) but this one is a bad example.

But when I look at the satellite selection in general there does not seem to be anywhere near the range of choice.

The Sunday Majors are a bit out my price league so take the Big $55 which is a tournament I really like. Selecting tomorrows tournament there are three satellites. The earliest satellite is 1 hour 30 minutes before the tournament starts but is only a $5.50 entry so will not give that many seats. The next satellite is $11 starting 44 minutes before the tournament and the next one starts 21 minutes before the tournament.

All 3 of these are turbo tournaments so there is no option to play a normal speed satellite. And even the earliest one can run past the start as it can easily attract over 100 players and is deep stacked so even if it is a turbo it can take awhile.

When I look at a look of tournaments and then look at the available satellites most of them seem to follow that format (but as you say the Million ones have more). If you click a lot of the mid priced games in advance you see this same selection of speed satellites all very close to the target game.

The hot $22 has two satellites available (for tomorrow nights event) both starting within a half hour of the tournament. Considering it is still a day a way why cannot some earlier ones be thrown in? And maybe some normal speed ones too? If people don't play those ones doe it matter, at least the choice would be there. The Big $7.50 is the same (although I would just buy into this one).

U Shove I call, are referring to a completely different thing, I am not talking about using the satellite winnings for other events, just having more choice in the satellites and having more available in advance of the start time of the target tournament. I know on PokerStars they give you tournament tokens which can be used on anything if the tournament has not started. Sites like PKR have got round that by giving you tickets to that event which you can only use on that event. Therefore you can postpone it but you still have to use it on the target tournament. Unfortunately PKR struggles to get enough players for its satellites but this is a very good way of preventing what you are describing.

Kind Regards

PJ

I have just had another look at the Sunday Millions too. The only normal speed ones they do are $11 (or at least the ones showing currently in the satellites screen). I would have thought to have seen more in the $22 region as it is going to pay under 5% of seats. A bit tight of a pay structure. I remember when they did 100 guaranteed places but now its 2 to 3 so I would rather pay more to enter and have more seats paid.

Lol wat?

If the tournament entry is $215 but most of the satellites are only $11 you are looking at only 1 in 20 places are being paid.

I thought it was mainly to stop people grinding satties for the $T. They want people in the sats to actually play the tourney the satellite's for, so they overlap/auto-reg them.

Although you may think sattelites save money getting into a mtt, the rois on them are pretty low even if your a decent player cause most of them are turbos plus you pay rake twice essentially. If its 1/20 getting a seat you'll prob get in avg 1/15 -1/25 over the long run depending on your skill level.

I do however kind of agree with your point, and believe there should be more reg speed satties, like the mega ones that they run to the majors, to stuff like the big 55 big 109 etc

Hey man your response towards me was very informative and good and I do see your point, even if I have a little problem with translating some sentences (english is my second language)
However regarding the stars coins, you can actually buy tournament tickets with the coins in the store. I think its like 1100 coins for a $11 buy-in but I could be wrong, it could be 1100 coins = $1,1 buy-in (cant check this now as I dont have access to the client)

but yes, i also agree with that it should be more reg speed sattys to tournaments (even if I personally have adjusted my turbo gameplay after these sattys )

Hi 26sk8er

That's what I would love to see, more regular speed satellites to those kind of tournaments. These may have to be started the day before or something for the earlier ones. Swwinn argues it may be to stop people grinding them for the T$ money but then they should just make it so you cannot unregister from the final.

As I mentioned above I believe PKR has a really good solution for this by given you a token for a year that you have to use in the target event. I think PartyPoker too has satellites that work similar where you get a ticket to an event of the target value.

I would not want to grind satties myself, the whole point is to have a cheaper shot at a bigger a tournament.

This, and not necessarily saying one way or the other on the argument of when sats should end, but theoretically speaking, they could try to time it so sats end sooner in the late reg period. But they have to be careful not to let them end before the tournament starts unless they want to make the sat award must-play tickets.

Also, I personally don't like to start a tournament in the meaningless, deepstacked levels, so if a satty is going to force me to enter 10 minutes into a 3 hour late reg, I'd be much less likely to play the satty in the first place. Granted if someone satties into a big buyin tournament, they probably actually want the experience of playing the tournament, not just shoving 15bb and busting shortly in.

One last thing to keep in mind: they really need to be sure that the sats end before late reg closes for a given event, or else the satty players end up playing for T$. I'm sure some like this, but it's unfair to the satty players, especially recs, and hurts the target event. This is especially an issue with events with no late reg (shootouts) that take place in COOPs. Sometimes it's due to bad sat scheduling, but another reason why sats run long in general could be because they get more runners than expected.

I would have thought a lot of it is to create more frenzied play as you start a tournament short stacked so are more likely to have to take a chance with a mediocre hand or get allin rather than play a hand.

I do not think it's due to field size when a lot of satellites start 20-40 minutes before the main event. I would much prefer to see more that start a lot earlier but maybe force you to play the target event if this is done to avoid grinding satellites.

I play very few sats because of this. I remember on FTP you got a message, something like "MTT has started, you can join or get a ticket". I think that was perfect.

there are a decent number of satellites esp some of the main satellites that finish fairly late into late reg which i think is kinda annoying, but havent seen any changes to that whenever it was mentioned to stars reps

I dont like it for 2 reasons.
There are less satellites per event now, since they have less time frame to run, in order to finish when the event is in play. This hurts players since there are less chances to "run it up" and hurts site since there is less rake produced.

Why does Stars think that tourny dollar grinders are bad for them? The tourny dollar grinders still have to play tournaments and pay additional rake in order to "release" that monies.
This seems like an example of Stars trying to maximize their bottom line, while not fully in tuned with how the player ecosystem will react.

Simple solution. Reverse rebuy rake increase, reintroduce rebuy sattellites. In other words, change the sattelites back to how they were a year ago.

That's my spot, exactly! And as PS own FTP (if they still do) they must know there are better solutions if they don't want grinders. Several sites have come up with these solutions. I was looking at $109 tournament satellites last night for a tournament today. Not many have normal speed tournament but this one did. However it started only an hour before the tournament so could easily finish two hours in if not more.

I think like you though it is going to make me play satellite less, as other have said they give a lower ROI. I think the way Pokerstars makes this worse by them all nearly being turbos and finishing late into the main tounry. The one I mentioned above had it's earliest satellite staring only an hour before. Why is this necessary? Have the satellite start earlier and state you cannot deregister.

Obv Spoil and Kaptec agree on this too. I do feel this Pokerstars increasing their profits even further as the games are ending quicker. It really suits hyper aggressive styles that play turbos as their main event. Traditionally a satellite was a satellite, that is a tournament into a bigger tournament, not frenzied turbo tournaments finishing way into the main events.

Well carrying on with a tourny now. The satellite only finished 45 minutes in, guess I am lucky on this one ;-)

Consequently 15 more minutes into that main event, despite not playing a hand (so I have not lost chips that way) my M value is down to 15. I feel I have been penalized by winning the seat through a satellite, despite I paid to enter the satellite and had to win this entry. Not great!

Sorry, I meant an M of 13! Still in it though ($44 bounty) and have won over the entry fee so this one is not going to badly. However the problem was initially I felt that I was moving towards a point I needed to double up. There were many hands tat were no longer playable and I needed to be careful entering pots because my stack was would not go as far I could not afford to be playing flops unless I knew I could take them down as they would damage my stack too much.

It's not that PS doesn't want grinders. It's that if a field is too reg heavy, fewer fish player, which means in turn fewer regs me, which is bad for the poker ecosystem. I think making some if not all sats award must-play tickets would return sats to being actual paths for people to get into higher buyin tournaments and not just a T$ generator.

Managed to get in another regular speed satellite into $109 tournament but alas it finished an hour and 15 minutes into the target event. It does feel a bit of a con to me. Any moves where you are re-raising at this point you risk having to move all in because you are putting substantially more of your stack in.

I really need to look at other site more now if I am going to play satellites as I do not like this setup. The thing with PokerStars is the huge amount of players mean you often get a lot more seats but combined with the fact that so many of the satellites are speed ones combined with how late they finish into the main tournament I feel you are reducing your ROI in these tournaments and increasing the luck factor.

Just skimmed through thread. I think this is aids. I came across this a while back when I played a satty and won and was auto seated into the tourney which had been running for some time. The problem with this is that I didn't have enough free time to play the tournament as well. So ended up just blasting off the chips.

Hi insanepain

That's what I have found. You are so far through you have reduced your options greatly. Sometimes when I buy direct in I have tripled my stack in the first hour but through satellites do not have this chance which is a real shame. Some other sites have the right idea with the target event later or another day but unfortunately because they are smaller sites do not have the range of tournaments but I think if I want to play in satellites I may need to be more picky on these sites and play some key ones rather than keeping ending up in this situation on Pokerstars.

Remember the days when they did not have late registration on many tournaments? Sharp turnaround to now where late registration can go on for 2.5 hours and most satellites designed to push you well into late registration. Shame, I think it spoils late satellites.

Pj

I have seen on one of the other threads PokerStars started all the satellites closer to the target events to avoid confusion about what target tournaments the satellites were related to and so players did not have to wait too long for the target tournament to start after finishing the satellite.

So are we too stupid to click the link in the satellite that takes you to the target tournament or pick a target tournament and click satellites available? Does not seem that hard.

In terms of having to wait for the tournament to start is it not better to have it finish an hour before the target tournament starts rather than an hour after? It could at least be better timed than it is. And I am sure players can find another game in the mean time and some may actually like the break if there were more normal speed satellites as the satellite would go on longer. The fact is if they had more satellites starting earlier at least players would have the option to choose but it seems like most tournaments now generally only have satellites starting pretty much an hour at most before the target.

Why not have satellites starting earlier to give players more options?