FTP Daily Dollar Satellites to build BR...

There's an old thread on this but it ended up bashing the daily dollar when the actual daily dollar had nothing to do with what the OP was asking. How old should a thread be before I'm grave robbing?

Anyway, somebody there said that if you play these satellites and only finish in the top 3 about 1/3 of the time spread evenly that you break even. I keep doing the math and you don't. You come out ahead. Accounting for buy-ins and finishing below 3rd place 2/3 of the time(needed 3 calculators for this I'm so bad), you actually win $7.5 over 100 of these things if you only place ITM divided equally by 3.

Unless I used the calculators wrong, that's 25% profit. How's 25% profit breaking even? Let's say you goof your way out of the money 2/3 of the time but do exceptionally well 1/3. $1 won 1/3 of the time would still be 10c profit. So that's should be .033...% profit(I think). If you managed to do it steadily you'd still be ahead. Closer to break even, but still.

Realistically, if you're patient enough you'll improve to the 25% profit in short order. Even without that kind of patience you'll end up with 5% - 10% realistically accounting for weird stuff in the long run(better than a lot of savings accounts offer even if it is just a tiny bit of money in your poker account). If you're more skilled/patient you can obviously do even better than 25% ITM(I haven't played enough of these things consistently to know how good/bad I am).

A br can be built, just very slowly. Hit $20 take a shot @ $1 + 10c MTT. Hit $40 try that MTT again, and so on and so forth. Just keep dropping down until you have a legitimate br going.

Oh yeah and I learned to not wig out because you know a better player's at the table.

Yes I have used this method to build a bankroll from freeroll winnings. Thirty cent buyin first and second wins a buck 3rd is 25 cents. They are very easy to finish in top 2. 1 out of 3 times making a dollar is very doable. Thats a 10 cent profit for a 90 cent investment. its only about 12 percent profit, so can build a bankroll but will take alot of effort.

These are a good starting point after getting a freeroll cash. After cashing in 2 freerolls i started playing these recently. Here are my stats:

Played - 109
1st/2nd - 44
3rd - 18

Net profit $15.80
- ROI - 48.32
- ITM - 56.88

CerberAce gets it. VN Cerber.

A-Rag, I'm not sure you get it. Top 2 one in three times is almost worst case scenario.

Even with $0 to spend on software there are tools at your disposal. Try http://pokerprolabs.com. They actually keep track of results for this specific sng(most sites just don't bother with these things). Play 50-100 of these things. Where you bust out the most is likely the hole in your SNG strategy/game. Plug that hole and move as much as you can to ITM...

Finishing ITM minimizes losses. Once you're there it becomes that much easier to finish with $1. Notice how Cerber finished in the money 56.88% of the time. Once there it was easier to get the TD.

It only takes a lot of effort to conquer these things by fine tuning your game. Once conquered, you play so few hands to make it ITM that you can afford to open multiple satellites. I'm liking Cerber's 56.88% ITM but am trying to push to 75% ITM. If I can spot ways to just coast to 3rd 50% of the time and just focus on winning 25% of the time, then it'll be more than a little profitable and won't take a really long time.

Hey N.D. I think 65% ITM is very achievable in these turbo sitngoes. Most of the time i was placing 1st/2nd in 2 out of 3. You will have the odd bad run of only place in 1 out of 3 but like you said that is worst case.

Play a basic TAG early and dont be concerned with only having a 1000 stack or less when it gets short handed. As your only a couple of steals away from being one of the bigger stacks again.

With 3-5 players I found myself playing vs the opponents stacks rather than my own cards. Steal from the smaller stacks/weak players and leave the big stack alone.

When 3 handed the big stack (if that isnt you) will often do the job for you and knock out the 3rd player.

CerberAcE said:

When 3 handed the big stack (if that isnt you) will often do the job for you and knock out the 3rd player.

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I hate however when they end up doubling him up instead though... they become bigstacks by either getting lucky and getting hands a few times, or having rags lead to riches.

I think if you have 1000 in chips you're good to steal against anyone who has 2500 or less... anyone with 3000 or more is going to call you imo with a pretty wide range of hands because they're donkeys...

CerberAcE said:

Hey N.D. I think 65% ITM is very achievable in these turbo sitngoes. Most of the time i was placing 1st/2nd in 2 out of 3. You will have the odd bad run of only place in 1 out of 3 but like you said that is worst case.

Play a basic TAG early and dont be concerned with only having a 1000 stack or less when it gets short handed. As your only a couple of steals away from being one of the bigger stacks again.

With 3-5 players I found myself playing vs the opponents stacks rather than my own cards. Steal from the smaller stacks/weak players and leave the big stack alone.

When 3 handed the big stack (if that isnt you) will often do the job for you and knock out the 3rd player.

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My stats after small trial run during which I worked on strategy and by the end was working really hard on my middle game(Less than 100 tries but still seems to be better than most folks do and I squeezed $15 of play out of less than $2, it's a start):

Early Finish - 5%
Early Middle Finish - 16%
Middle Finish - 35%
Middle Late Finish - 20%
Late Finish - 22%
ITM - 40%

See how enormous my middle finish% is? Middle late is surely 4th/3rd place. I'm almost positive I can get early middle, and middle finishes down to 15% each without a ton of effort. Shift that to middle late, and only go for 3rd place, would be 61% ITM for a start. Once I get consistent with 61% ITM, then I can focus on making my early middle and middle finishes fewer still. I don't think it's so strange to want to get my early middle down to 10%. Once I do that I think I can get that middle down to 10% as well. Focusing on 3rd place should get me to 75% ITM with serious effort.

Once in the money I'll have situation based options, but the important part's making it ITM. I only want to improve my late finishes by 3%. Even if I don't I should still be ahead by cutting losses with the 3rd place finishes.

The only reason I believe 75% ITM's doable is because almost nobody's trying for 3rd place b4 going for 1st/2nd. The payout structure tricks people into going for broke around 4th place.

Realistically though, 60% ITM would still be doing very well. Even if 38%-40% of that was finishing in 3rd place. It would still cut my losses tremendously while making the 1st/2nd finishes profitable.

salim271 said:

I hate however when they end up doubling him up instead though... they become bigstacks by either getting lucky and getting hands a few times, or having rags lead to riches.

I think if you have 1000 in chips you're good to steal against anyone who has 2500 or less... anyone with 3000 or more is going to call you imo with a pretty wide range of hands because they're donkeys...

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IMHO it depends on the day and time. Also the $1 + 20c is no better. Would you rather lose 30c or $1.20?

Also you have to remember that these things are turbos. Just because somebody calls your big raise or shove doesn't necessarily mean they're a donkey. The blinds escalate quickly. IMO if the blinds have gotten big and your opponent's blinded, and it only costs them a bit more to call, they should call with a wide range of hands. It's better than getting blinded out.

Don't get me wrong. The overwhelming majority of entrants aren't even trying. Many are working with a minimum of bad advice or faith that any two cards will win. Let's not forget the power of the unsuited ace rag people.

N.D. said:

IMHO it depends on the day and time.

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Oh yeah i know that for sure, when I play around 5 its way looser than 1 pm or so...

I wish they had something like this on pokerstars. My entire BR is there

I wouldn't try to build a BR with that personally, but I think it is a great way to rack up FTP for bigger tourney sattelites. Specifically the fact that for 50 FTP, placing means you get 200. Not too shabby.

superman4all said:

I wish they had something like this on pokerstars. My entire BR is there

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They have better than that on Pokerstars. They have 25c 45 player sngs with no fees. 10c sngs(small multi tables really) without fees. And 1c hyper turbos(those are fun and smallest risk possible).

politude said:

I wouldn't try to build a BR with that personally, but I think it is a great way to rack up FTP for bigger tourney sattelites. Specifically the fact that for 50 FTP, placing means you get 200. Not too shabby.

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Why you wanna risk 50 pts at a time instead of 25c when it's harder to earn 50pts than to earn 25c? On top of that the exchange rate's nutty. 200 points = $1 in the guarantee tournaments. So you trade 50 pts that cost you more than 50c to earn, for what amounts to 25c worth of satellite, which will only win you $1 worth of points?

You play in the cash version that pays out in TD's and you earn points while playing. Throw in the academy challenges and you earn credits while playing(can't do that for points). Earn credits faster than points, yep-yep. Then trade credits for points or money after you save them.

Everything's cheaper through the academy. But you can't earn credits with the points satellites/tournaments. Only the cash ones. Gotta have credits to trade for bonus $$$, books, dvds, cardrunners. First gotta be patient and earn them.

These satellites pay $1 for 1st and 2nd and $0.25 for 3rd.

Therefore, if you expect to be ITM 1/3rd of the time,
Expected winnings = (2/9 * 1) + (1/9 * 0.25) = 0.25

Cost for entry is 0.30 including rake, so not a very good proposition.

The main problem with these is the shocking rake of 20%. Try to find sngs with less that 10% rake if you can.

The main benefit to playing these with FTPs instead is that there is no rake, they are also even softer that the real money ones.

LMFAO it's full tilt poker not Bunch of Decent Guys Who Don't Bleed You Dry Every Chance They Get Poker(probably because that would take too long to put in a slogan). 20%'s not shocking at FTP. It's actually a relief. For the longest time I was paying 25% in bottom level ring games and $1 sngs, and losing it all faster than you can say "banana bread". Could it be a helluva lot better? Yeah, but then so could Britney Spears' singing.

It's a trade off. In exchange for 20% rake I get to use easy to navigate software that doesn't hurt my eyes too much. I get to watch big name professionals get their collective butts whooped by people with funny screennames. I get to frollick in the purgatory of microstakes and laugh at all the people who are actually dumber than I am. Hehehe, I'm so low on the totem pole, I can type the vilest things in chat and never get my chat revoked!

There are other perks besides. I get to very slowly save up points. If I'm really lucky they'll start adding things to the store like the crap-prizes at Chuck E. Cheese. Just think, some day I'll have enough points to trade for one of Phil Ivey's toenail clippings, or half a stick of Erick Lindgren's gum with all the sweet chewed out. Maybe even a snotty Kleenex of Durrrr's. Some day.

I like to think of the 20% rake as combining a really high interest rate from the loans my freeroll winnings have turned out to be, with an exorbitant commission fee for converting part of my tournament dollars into cash(which is what happens when I finish in 3rd place).

Then there are the academy credits which can be saved up and exchanged for cash and more points + other junk besides. Academy credits that are faster and easier to get than points. Hmmm

Best part? I get to spend time enjoying my myriad of poker nicknames: Luckbox POS, B-I-T-C-H!, Burn in Hell, Donkey, Fish, Idiot, and LOSER(which is sometimes misspelled as LOOSER). But I'd trade it all for a bit of used dental floss from Jennifer Harman(I'm getting that desperate for tangible rewards).

Thanks for peeing on my optimism. I so rarely have any. It was warm and pleasant for a split second. Then I realized what was happening. Oh well.

P.S. There's no such thing as Santa Clause and all your favorite slutty models have fake boobs and used to be men. Now we're even.

50 points are way easier... if you have a decent amount of ftps I would just use those... its like having two BRs.

The $0.25+0.05 and 50FTP are very beatable if you have some patience and stealing ability when it gets short handed. They are probably more profitable than 2NL.

But alas I want to progress up the cash game ladder so ill be leaving them for now.

CerberAcE said:

The $0.25+0.05 and 50FTP are very beatable if you have some patience and stealing ability when it gets short handed. They are probably more profitable than 2NL.

But alas I want to progress up the cash game ladder so ill be leaving them for now.

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GL and keep the academy challenges in mind. You can reactivate them and credits add up much faster than points. 5k will get you a $25 token. 15k will get you a $75 token. 20k's worth $100. Best deal's 100k that's worth $600. Shouldn't take forever to save up enough to make it worthwhile.