Pokerfest II: How to Play and Win Satellite Tournaments With Unam
The PartyPoker and WPT Poker Pokerfest II begins on April 22. The 47 events carry a range of buy-ins, here we present a guide to qualifying to higher stakes events via satellite tournaments.
Pokerfest II starts with a $215 No Limit Hold'em event that carries a $350,000 guarantee on April 22 at 17:00 GMT. For many of you, this is outside safe bankroll management which means your main chance of playing is by qualifying to the event via a smaller satellite tournament.
PartyPoker and WPT Poker are running satellites every day to their higher buy-in events ($55 to $1,050) which means that you can compete in all 47 events and take a shot at their cumulative $3.5 million guaranteed prize pool without busting your bankroll.
Go to the Pokerfest II forum thread
Winning satellite strategies
The key difference between regular tournament poker and satellite tournaments is that you are not playing in order to win, simply to make the money, as each payout is generally the same value.
Some key tips for satellite tournaments from our resident expert are:
Avoid big stacks when you're near the bubble: You do not want to go for broke trying to build a stack; you simply want to limp into the money. This means that even if you have a premium hand, you should avoid clashing with stacks that have you covered or can severely cripple you because...
You don't need more chips, you just need to cash: This is the key point to remember when playing satellite tournaments. If you have the choice of making it to the money with just a few big blinds or playing a pot to take the chip lead, you should always take the first option.
Keep a healthy stack by pressuring similar stack sizes: As you will not want to clash with covering or similar-sized stacks, neither will your opponents. Be mindful of this and steal pots from players whose stacks you can damage.
Avoid bullying big stacks or super-short stacks: Clashing with big stacks or super short stacks is a bad idea, because the big stacks can bust you from the tournament and the short stacks are unlikely to commit their chips light. In addition, the cost of doubling up short stacks can quickly add up to put a dent in your own stack.
What should Hero do with his aces in the following example hand?
Blinds: 800/1,600
Villain 1 (CO): 4,200
Villain 2 (BU): 83,400
Villain 3 (SB): 6,200
Hero (BB): 53,000 with
Preflop (2,400):
Villain 1 folds, Villain 2 raises to 83,400 (all-in), Villain 3 folds, Hero...?
The answer is that we should fold. Even if the button is shoving 100% of hands, your equity with aces is "only" 85.2%. Given the two short stacks have only a few big blinds each, you are almost guaranteed to cash by folding every hand. Though you double up 85.2% of the time, that means you are eliminated with no cash 14.8% of the time. In this extreme example, even aces are an easy fold.
Pokerfest II satellites
These qualifiers allow you to buy in to any event for that value. That means if you qualify for a $215 buy-in, you can take your pick of any of the $215 events.
Pokerfest II qualifiers are already running and will continue through May 6th according to the following schedule:
| Buy-in | Satellite | Qualifier |
| $55 | Daily $6 & $2+R satellites | - |
| $99 | Daily $10.50 & $6+R satellites | Daily $1+R qualifier to the $10.50 satellite |
| $215 | Daily $23 & $11+R satellites | Daily $2.50 qualifier for the $23 satellite |
| $530 | Daily $115 & $58+R satellites | $13 qualifier -> $115 & $6.50 qualifier -> $58+R |
| $640 | Daily $27+R satellite | Daily $1+R qualifier for the $27 satellite |
| Daily $70 satellite | Daily $8 & $2+R qualifier for the $70 satellite | |
| Daily $172 satellite | Daily $47 qualifier for the $172 satellite | |
| Friday $55 satellite | Daily $6 & $2+R qualifier for the $55 satellite | |
| $1,060 | Daily $560, $115, $225, $44+R Satellites |
$25 qualifier -> $225 & $12.00 qualifier -> $115 |
