Are PKOs the best format to satellite into?

After a big payday from a satellite win, Barry Carter reflects on what the best format is for an amateur player to turn a satellite into profit is.

As most of you will know at this stage, I cowrote a book on poker satellites this year. I love satellites and they are the only format I can comfortably say I am a winner in. But as such they represent a small issue for me, how do I convert the satellite skills into profit, given you have to go on to play in another tournament when you win?

For a long time I have wondered what the best format would be for me to play after winning a satellite to realise my winnings and last weekend I decided to give PKOs a go. It went well:

$5.50 sat -> $109 sat - > $530 PKO - > 2nd for $14,500

All thanks to @daraokearney and his book on satellites (which I cowrote and have a vested interest in promoting)

Apologies for the spam but I Jamie Golded that one, it ain't happening againhttps://t.co/az1H4dLWHB https://t.co/hX1fJ57l8x

— Barry Carter (@Barry_Carter) October 21, 2019

So clearly this is a not very subtle brag post, but I genuinely have been thinking about whether PKOs are the best format for a satellite specialist to play after winning a ticket. I have come to the conclusion that the answer is no, with a but. 

The best way to lock up a small profit

There are several reasons why PKOs make sense to satellite into, one of which being is that they are so incredibly polar opposite that you flex a lot of different poker muscles. In satellites the ICM is so extreme that it is often correct to fold Pocket Aces preflop. In PKOs the bounties are sometimes so alluring it is correct to call with just about anything. This is something my friend and co-author Dara O'Kearney refers to as the 'ICM dial' which can be tuned in both directions depending on what is at stake. If you only played satellites and PKOs you would probably still develop a great overall understanding of ICM.

The best reason to satellite into PKOs is that there is more chance of winning a prize that makes the satellite itself profitable. In the MTT I played last week the first of many bounties I bagged was about $100 and given I had qualified for $5 it meant I was already up. It took the pressure off and most notably, as the bounties got big, made the tournament lots of fun. Every 30 minutes my wife would hear me cheer then run in the room to announce another notable bounty. To the guys who regularly play high stakes PKOs it is not exactly a big deal to win a $500 bounty, but when you are in for $5 it really is. 

This is precisely why operators like PKOs, they spread more money to more players. However, there is also a strong argument against choosing a PKO over a regular tournament when deciding where to satellite.

Top heavy prize pools

In a PKO the prizes are much more top heavy than in a regular MTT, so as such they really favour the better players. This is why most operators have taken steps recently to flatten PKO payouts by making the top two finishers get similar payout prizes. The eventual winner gets the final bounty plus their own bounty anyway, so they usually end up with the most money even when first and second are the same. Just this month iPoker flattened their own PKO payouts too ahead of their new MTT schedule and DOJO Series to reflect this. 

PKOs also remain the great unsolved poker format, so if the best players in the world are struggling to know the correct line half the time, that means it is quite the uphill battle for the player who satellited in (my own score last weekend came almost entirely because I ran really well). 

If you are playing satellites as a way to test the waters of bigger games, I think it still makes most sense to play a regular MTT as the target event. You will likely learn the most along the way which is the next best outcome if you don't cash. 

But if you are looking to enjoy yourself, gamble a little and you are happy just bagging one bounty of profit, PKOs are probably the most fun format to satellite into. 

What is the best format to satellite into? Let us know in the comments: