Online Satellite Tournaments: Less Pay, More Poker

Poker satellite tournaments online are the more economical way to join more expensive tournaments such as multi-table tournaments. Poker satellite tournaments online have also served as portals to the World Series of Poker. This is so because poker satellite tournaments online reward their players not with cash money, but by purchasing them seats at the said larger tournaments.

If a multi-table tournament, for instance, charge $200 for the buy-in, a poker satellite tournament usually asks only $20. Entry fee to that multi-table tournament, which is generally asked at 6 - 10 percent of the cost of the buy-in, is $20. You pay only $2 to a satellite tournament.

Now, if there are, for instance, 10 entrants in the $20 satellite tournament to a multi-table tournament, this gives a buy-in sum of $200. This $200 buy-in sum is the prize pool. Instead of granting the player with $200 cash, however, the hosting online poker room gets the winning player a seat at the $200+ $20 multi-table tournament.

The number of seats that poker satellite tournaments online reward to players depends generally on how much the pool prize, as sum of all buy-ins is.

For instance, if there are 20 entrants, the hosting poker site awards 2 multi-table tournament seats to the top two winning entrants.

Poker satellite tournaments online to the WSOP tend to charge higher for the buy-in and the entry fee. The buy-in goes up generally to a hundred dollars and more.

Based on the number of seats they reward, poker satellite tournaments online may be grouped into three: the winner-take-all, the high buy-in, and the low buy-in tournaments.

In a winner-take-all satellite tournament, there is only seat to vie for. Only one winner will have it all, irrespective of the number of entrants or size of accumulate buy-ins.

High buy-in and low buy-in tournaments, on the other hand, are buy-in dependent.

In a high buy-in tournament, one seat is generally awarded to a relatively small population of participants. Say, the hosting site may reward one seat for every 20 players that enters the tournament.

In a low buy-in tournament, the proportion of seat and entrant population is largely discrepant. There is, for instance, one seat only for a participant pool size of 80 players.

Poker satellite tournaments online are a great way of joining major tournaments because they demand cheaper buy-ins as well as equally cheaper entry fees. Even then, buy-ins of poker satellite tournaments online do vary among hosting poker sites. With varying buy-in rates, number of seats to be rewarded also vary. You might also consider this factor--- whether there are ten seats to major tournaments at stake or only two, for instance, before granting the satellite tournament your buy-in.