How to qualify for the WSOP 2010 – satellite strategy

A lot of players dream of playing in the main event of the World Series of Poker. For the most people there is a small problem: the $10,000 buy-in. Luckily, these days there are a lot of opportunities to qualify for the World Series of Poker through the different poker sites. Most of them give you the opportunity to qualify through special satellite tournaments. In this article we are going to give you some strategic tips for winning your way to the WSOP 2010.

Choose the right satellite tournament – It can be a good idea to look around at the various poker sites and see what kind of satellites they offer. The big poker sites usually offer a large amount of satellites but because they are so popular the fields are huge. Don’t overlook the smaller poker sites! A lot of times they offer tremendous value for your money as they offer tournaments with guaranteed packages for the WSOP with relatively small fields. Also, don’t forget to look at the structure of the tournament, watch the blind levels, if it’s rebuy or freeze-out etc. At some poker sites you really have to take a close look to find this out..

The importance of Fold Equity – Fold Equity (the equity a player can expect to gain due to the opponent folding to his bet) is extremely important in qualifier tournaments, even more so than in normal tournaments. The reason is that you don’t want to win as much points as possible, you want to win a seat, whereas in a normal tournament you want as many points or money as possible. Creating maximum fold equity gets you chips in a more risk-free way than calling an all-in with say Ace-King. Even though you are ahead most of the time, you have the risk of being eliminated from the tournament and lose your chance of winning the seat.

You don’t have to win all the chips – Like we concluded in the fold equity part: we don’t have to win all the chips to win the WSOP package (except when there is only one seat to win, duh). This sounds easy, but a lot of satellite players are forgetting this. All the time I see players who already certain of a seat playing hands. You should even folds aces if that’s necessary. The goal is the seat and nothing else, or like Sylvester Stallone in Rocky: it’s all about the eye of the tiger!