Poker tournaments are big, mainstream events today with live TV coverage. Several players think that playing in these high stakes tournaments is only for the professionals and only for those who can afford the high entry fees. However, this is not true. With satellite poker tournaments you can gain a seat at one of these tournaments if you win it.
Past winner of satellite poker tournaments
Almost every poker player today would have heard of the World Series of Poker. In 2003, Chris Moneymaker was the champion of the main event at this prestigious poker tournament and he managed to gain a seat in the event by winning one of the satellite tournaments. Texas Holdem, the finals in this tournament has an entry fee of $10,000. However, Chris Moneymaker only had to pay $40 in order to gain entry at this mega event since he won the satellite tournament. After his success story, the popularity of the satellite tournaments has been increasing at a rapid pace. Thousands of players want to gain entry to the prestigious poker tournaments like the EPT- European Poker Tour, WPT- World Poker Tournament and to WSOP- World Series of Poker. With the help of these satellite poker tournaments, they are one step closer to their goal.
Since the entry to some of these events and tournaments can be very high, not many players can afford it. For a cheaper route to the event, a lot of players today consider registering themselves for one of the poker satellite poker tournaments.
What is a poker satellite tournament?
Basically, a WSOP satellite tournament is a very special type of tournament since it will allow the player to get a chance to win the entry in a larger poker tournament. The buy in for these satellite games is much smaller than the larger events. This is mainly because these tournaments are held to improve the number of participants in the tournament. The entry fee for the main event, for example $10,000, would be divided among as many players. For such tournaments the organizers will have an entry fee of $100 and will allow entry to say, 100 players. From this pool of the buy in amount, the entry fee of $10,000 for the larger event would be paid on behalf of the player that wins the tournament.
Although the entry fees may vary depending on the organizer and the exact buy in at the larger tournament, the main goal of the satellite poker tournaments is to keep their entry fees low so that more players would be able to afford the buy in and would be able to win a place in the larger event. The pool money would generally be sufficient enough to pay for the entry fees.