Bubbling a lot of satellites is a good sign

A guest post from Dara O'Kearney to console those of you who just miss out on a seat in a satellite - it's a sign you are doing things right.

A reader of my free strategy newsletter recently wrote to me with this message:

I was just in a spot I’m not sure about though, would you mind taking a look for me when you get the chance ? 

$600 Borgata Main Satty 

32 entries, 6 GTD seats, 7th=$560

8 players left

Stacks are as follows:

1 seat ~30BBs

2 seat- ~23BBs

3 seat - ~14BBs

4 seat - 3.5BBs

5 seat - ~15BBs

6 seat - 6BBs (hero)

7 seat - 5.5BBs

8 seat - 6.5BBs

Folds to me OTB, I jam KJo

This is a spot where it completely depends on what the calling ranges are. If the blinds know what they’re doing you can jam any two, as SB needs QQ and BB needs TT to call, so the shove gets thru over 95% of the time. Your hand barely matters, at equilibrium Aces makes about $60 as a shove and 72o makes over $40.

But...

And this is a big but....

If the guys don’t know how tight they should call, shoving this hand is an absolute disaster. For example if they will both call top 15% you can only profitably shove Aces and shoving KJo loses $240 of equity.

I talk about this a bit more in my recent video with Barry Carter but basically in these spots you quite often have a shove that is slightly profitable if everyone is calling correctly (tightly) but becomes massively unprofitable if they call too wide. So it’s a risk assessment.

In this case, shoving into two loose opponents is five times worse than not shoving into optimal opponents, so if you think there’s higher than a one-in-six chance they are too loose it’s a fold. This is one of those spots where you’re much better having someone who knows what they are doing in the blinds. 

More thoughts on bubbling satellites

Since the release of Poker Satellite Strategy the most heartening thing has been the number of success stories readers have sent us thanking us for helping them satellite into a big event they wanted to play.

However, I think my favourite recent message was not a "I won a seat!" success story but "I bubbled" from Tom, a student who did a session with me to prepare for a big satellite which he unfortunately ended up bubbling. Let's hear from Tom:

Hi Dara, just a message to say thanks for all your help, I’ve been reading your book, listening to your webinar and going over our lesson last week numerous times in preparation for today's satellite. Unfortunately I bubbled the satellite however I don’t feel as though I made any mistakes and if I did they were probably very marginal. During each stage of the satellite I felt I had a good understanding of the adjustments I needed to make. I didn’t once find myself in a position where I wasn’t sure what to do. I know it might seem a bit odd sending a message of thanks after bubbling a £9k package but it makes it a hell of a lot easier to deal with being confident that I made the correct plays!

My response.

Sorry to hear you bubbled Tom. Great mental attitude though! It’s too easy to be results based but variance is a thing too. It’s a really good sign you react like this after bubbling. The years I crushed UKIPT Satellite leaderboards we worked out that in addition to winning more seats than everyone, I also bubbled more often than anyone else.

Bubbling satellites is a good sign

It's important to realise, as Tom did, that bubbling a lot of satellites is actually a very good sign, not a bad one. Most UK football fans know that the answer to the question "Which team won the title the most often in the 80s?" is Liverpool (who dominated UK football that decade). What many do not realise is the answer to the question "Who finished runners up the most often in the 80s?" is also Liverpool. When you crush as hard as Liverpool that decade winning frequently, you are also going to come up one place short more frequently than weaker teams too.

In the same way, the best satellite players bubble a lot more often than the worst ones. A lot of people can’t hack the sense of helplessness emotionally when the correct strategy on a bubble is to keep folding and hope someone else busts first, but that is the game quite often. Because the mental challenges of a satellite are particular to satellites, most normal MTT players don't have much practice dealing with them. 

Bubbling a satellite is much worse than bubbling an MTT, and players who bubble a normal MTT can console themselves saying they were playing not to win cash but for the win. In a satellite, the min cash and the win are one and the same (except in rare cases) so the pressure not to bubble is massive. A lot of people can't take that pressure and try to "take matters into their own hands". They lack the discipline to keep making big folds because it feels bad and just prolongs the tension.

This is an excerpt from Dara's most recent free strategy newsletter which we liked so much and he kindly let us publish it. For more insight like this, join his free newsletter. 

Also there is still time to buy his book and get a free €10 Unibet MTT token in a special Black Friday deal.