Dara O'Kearney (Satellite Specialist) - Ask Me Anything about satellites/knockouts

[IreAce]

Hi Dara,

Curious hand I played appreciate your opinion.

On the near bubble of a live satellite 29 left and 27 paid, play has slowed down tremendously and everyone is tanking and I am thinking bubble should burst within next orbit or 2 most players very very short stacked at this late stage.
8 handed table I am in BB with 3.8BB effective, and highjack shoves all in for 1.5bb, folds to me in the BB with K10s, .5 of a bb more for me to call WWYD?

I elected to fold as their was a couple players at my table and other tables with 1bb or less and I thought I could survive 1 more orbit by just folding and hoping bubble bursts within next few hands.

Needless to say some players at table thought I was mad "how could you fold and guarantee him a ticket etc"

Strategy/Thoughts ?

 

[IreAce]

Do you think solver study is a necessity in this day and age?

 

[SpanRmonka]

Hi Dara,

How much wider should our range really get in a bounty tourney when calling a shove, for say a half buy in bounty?
Also, should we get deep in a tourney and the bounty available is more like say 5/6 times the buy in, how much difference should this make to to decision to call now?
Maybe we can assume the payjump isn't soon, or particularly significant.
Thanks

 

[Debi]

Good luck to everyone who wants to try to win a copy of Dara's new book!

Win a copy of Dara O'Kearney's new book GTP Poker Simplified

 

[belladonna05]

I listened to a pro they other day and they said GTO is more valuable to learn for online poker and not as much for live play, do you agree or disagree?

 

[Nafor]

So, how will you convince the world to read your book? I'm sure it's great but there are probably other good ones too.
In this day and age people are just too lazy to read.

 

[Dara OKearney]

Top 4 sites to play satellites:
1.- Unibet
2.-?
3.-?
4.-?
Regards

LOL, love how you put unibet top!

It depends on what you're looking for exactly but here's my list based on what I think will be the most profitable for me in the long term:
1. Unibet (you got this right)
2. Ipoker
3. WPTGlobal
4. America's Cardroom

Thanks for your question!

 

[Joe]

Hi Dara!

When playing do you ever have situations where your gut/instinct tells you something totally different to your brain and, if so, how do you decide which to trust in any given instance or do you always go with one or the other?

Kind Regards. 👍

 

[CRStals]

Hi Dara!

For a intermediate poker player who plays low stakes, more cash than tournament, how much emphasis should they place on studying more advanced topics like GTO?

 

[Dara OKearney]

On some sites hypers have larger antes than other formats, and this is acutally something, you need to adjust to. But strictly speeking it is of course the antes, you adjust to, and not how fast the blinds go up

Agreed! It's always worth keeping an eye on the size of the ante and adjusting accordingly: even in a regular speed tournament this can vary quite a lot from level to level

 

[lcid86]

Do you believe begining players should focus more on pre-flop or post-flop study?

 

[LaRockObama]

What is your preferred beverage while playing poker?

 

[Andyreas]

Hi Dara,

thank you for the opportunity to win a copy of your book!

As a beginner, that'd definitely help improve my game. 🤓

My question to you would be:
Do you think playing strictly according to GTO is actually exploitable somehow?
I'm not totally deep into the matter tbh but we have one member claiming this and I'm curious if there's any possibility to even do that? 🤔

 

[Poker Orifice]

For a player who doesn't have any experience with any of the GTO solvers, what one would you recommend? After seeing many of them being promoted on some of the Twitch streamer's channels, it leaves me wondering what avenue to take ('after' reading your book that is )
tks.

 

[kahe13]

Hi Dara, i was wondering. If a spot is a +$ev would you always take it or there maybe some other factors you'd consider? Ty

 

[candide78]

Hi Dara,
I have your (and Barry's) other books but was wondering what the best reading order would be? As a recreational player my goal is to have fun and I enjoy satelliting into events I wouldn't otherwise be able to afford as I find this exciting. Obviously, all the subjects of your books are worthy of study, but should I build a fundamentally good game - GTO and ICM for example, and then go for format specific? Or some other sequence?
Thanks,
Johnathan.

 

[Recreationalplayer]

Hi Cardschat,

I am Dara O’Kearney, known as Doke online. I am an Irish poker professional tournament player, with over $1 million in live earnings and more than $3 million in online MTTs, not to mention 8 PocketFives Triple Crowns.

I am perhaps best known for being a satellite specialist. I have won over $1 million in online satellites alone and have just written a new book on this subject called Poker Satellite Strategy:

Away from the tables I am the co-host of the Global Poker Award winning Chip Race Podcast and sponsored by Unibet Poker. Prior to poker I was an ultra marathon runner

Cardschat have kindly agreed to let me do an Ask Me Anything thread where you can ask me anything at all about satellites and tournament strategy. This will be on an ongoing basis, I’ll be checking in most weeks starting this one to answer your questions and to begin with I will be around tomorrow to answer the first batch.

Also this month I will give a free copy of my book on Apple iBooks to my favourite question, once a week for the next four weeks.

AMA

Hi Cardschat,

I am Dara O’Kearney, known as Doke online. I am an Irish poker professional tournament player, with over $1 million in live earnings and more than $3 million in online MTTs, not to mention 8 PocketFives Triple Crowns.

I am perhaps best known for being a satellite specialist. I have won over $1 million in online satellites alone and have just written a new book on this subject called Poker Satellite Strategy:

Away from the tables I am the co-host of the Global Poker Award winning Chip Race Podcast and sponsored by Unibet Poker. Prior to poker I was an ultra marathon runner

Cardschat have kindly agreed to let me do an Ask Me Anything thread where you can ask me anything at all about satellites and tournament strategy. This will be on an ongoing basis, I’ll be checking in most weeks starting this one to answer your questions and to begin with I will be around tomorrow to answer the first batch.

Also this month I will give a free copy of my book on Apple iBooks to my favourite question, once a week for the next four weeks.

AMA


Dara

How can one effectively deploy GTO knowledge to exploit opponents without getting exploited ?

I will try to elaborate my question.

How much deviation (in terms of %) from GTO play goes unpunished by counter adjustment/exploitation from opponents ?

 

[plonk]

Hi Dara

I've heard you say on a recent Chip Race episode that, contrary to widespread misperception, when players reach the final 2 tables in a standard MTT, the ICM pressure has actually been coming *down* and is lower than many people think.

This appears to be in tension with what you wrote in chapter 3 ("Bubble Factor") of your Endgame book. Specifically the section where you discuss a chart from the book Kill Everyone, which shows the average bubble factor over the course of a typical online MTT. This section contains the statement "the final two tables is where ICM is heaviest", and this agrees with what the chart shows. (Bubble factors peak on the FT bubble, and steeply increase leading up to this peak).

Can you help resolve the apparent contradiction? If necessary, I'll try to find the exact podcast episode where I've heard you say that ICM pressure is lower in the semifinals and quote your exact words from it. (Perhaps I'll realise that I misunderstood something?)

Thank you for being awesome and for providing a prompt and detailed answer to my excellent question, ideally by 7pm today. (No pressure, though. 8pm is fine, too.)

 

[BarryCarter]

The winners of the promo are

5 CRStals​

2 belladonna05​

3 Nafor​

8 Andyreas​

6 lcid86

I will DM you with the book now. I recorded the prize draw, video to follow​

 

[BarryCarter]

Winner draw

 

[Andyreas]

Winner draw

@CRStals nearly won two copies. 🤣

 

[Nafor]

@CRStals nearly won two copies. 🤣

And he gave one for his barber as well

 

[Nafor]

This will have a honorary place in my digital bookshelf.
Thank you!

 

[WellAA]

LOL, love how you put Unibet top!

It depends on what you're looking for exactly but here's my list based on what I think will be the most profitable for me in the long term:
1. Unibet (you got this right)
2. Ipoker
3. WPTGlobal
4. America's Cardroom

Thanks for your question!

Thanks for the tips, I`ll see Lpoker and WPTGlobal, as Unibet and ACR I know.

 

[VelcroMidget]

Hi Dara,

Love your work around satties. In your video guide to satties, you mention that pros with max late reg . Do you prefer to do this or play from the start of a tournament? I have mixed feelings about this. Often if I reg from the start, by the end of late reg I am below starting stack, so I feel like I should of just hopped in at the end. The downside to this is that you dont get much time to build a stack and have to pay push/fold as soon as you enter.

Thanks in advance.