satellite type tournament strategy

[madjek]

Where I play live, one of the promotions is a (now) weekly tournament for free which is played down to a certain number and everyone gets paid same at that pt. They call it survivor tournaments, but basically same concept as a satellite, really no reason to push to win, you just want to "survive". I was lucky enough to cash in last month's (it was monthly till this month) but would like to here from members who have had success playing sat. tournies and here some basic strategy for these types. Do you try to see a lot of flops cheap early, how low do you let you stack get before fold or shove, etc. I know when I cashed there were at least 4 players that had only a blind left. Hopefully we can get thread going with some strategy talk. I'm playing tomorrow afternoon in this weeks tourney, its my first as I didn't play much earlier in month, I hear there are less than 100 entries and 20 get paid ($500). Structure isn't bad but I will be a little short stacked as you get 7500 starting chips and can earn 5k extra by playing before tourney, which I cannot, but 20 min levels so i have time. Hope to get some tips before game.

[fabstery]

well my experience with satellites is very different. for the 3x turbo sats (which are still the most played ones, as you can earn a ticket, which is possibly like 100x your buyin), i tried them from time to time, won a few seats, but overall my ROI there is only slightly positive i think. thats probably cause theyre allin/fold mtts from a certain point on, and its (not only, but mainly) all about luck then.

i personally play mostly regular speed mtts, and therefore i also prefer regular speed sats. of course your ticket wont be as big compared to your buyin, but its still nice to win like x10 your buyin without risking too much while playing the sat. my strategy is to see many flops with suited connectors and play only big hands otherwise. hands like A9o usually land in the muck for me preflop (even on CO).

im trying to avoid coin-flips in those. remember your AK is even behind deuces, so why should i call an allin with this hand for 50 BBs, if i can build my stack better through smaller pots without risking my tournament life. if im running good in such a sat, which got lets say 10 tickets, im usually going through with not more than 1-2 allins myself preflop.


how was your game? did you win? maybe i gave you some new ideas for the next one