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

[RedGnom]

Hi Dara,

In regular knockout tournaments the bounty per player is independent of the stage of tournament. In the late phase of KO tournament it is much more important to take the best place possible and get appropriate prize than to knock out player, since in the late phase the size of KO bonus will be a very small percentage in our tournament share.

In the late phase of PKO tournament the average size of bounty per player increases significantly. Should I chase small & same stakes with bigger bounty on their head by playing in LAG style rather than proceed to play in TAG manner against all and keeping focus on stack increase that will provide me advantage further on?

Thanks.

 

[CRStals]

First off love that you are so active with us Dara!!

My questions:
- What are reasonable tournaments to try and satellite into with a modest bankroll and does it make sense to go for a one satellite to get in or steps? By modest, say you have $1000 - what's a good buy-in amount to target with that bankroll? A $109, a $215, or higher?

In a PKO, how important is it to go after bounties versus playing regular solid MTT poker? Should you go after them with a slightly wider range or go really wide if you are deep in chips?

 

[ChickenArise]

Min raise to be respected in PKO

I have been told a min raise pre flop is not respected in this format. What is the minimum size raise that would be respected for a chance at fold equity preflop? How is this determined?

 

[Dara OKearney]

Hello Dara!

Read in previous posts about your new KO tournaments book and wait it.

Today played in unusual tournament for me on PS.One of players on my table shoved or called shove some times in a row with middle notsuited connectors like JT, T9, 89. Is it profitable in those type of KO tournaments(4max, progressive KO)?

Below you can see last hand when I was eliminated by this villain.

https://www.cardschat.com/replayer/424Dc08dr

This depends on the size of the bounties. If they are large relative to the chips required to call (as a percentage of starting stack), then it could very well be profitable. In the book we give a quick way to calculate roughly how much equity you need in these spots based on these factors.

It could also be the caller is just a little too bounty happy. It certainly true that a lot of players call far too wide in these spots overestimating the value of the bounty.

Unlucky exit and thanks for your question!

 

[Dara OKearney]

Hi again Dara,

Please forgive me if this question seems a little out of place or unconventional.

I hope it is relevant in terms of learning about the mental side of poker, or at least learning from mistakes!

I would like to ask how you cope with the ‘if only’/’what if’/hindsight part of poker?

To give an example, last night I was in a PKO approaching the money bubble. I folded KTo pre-flop (see below). Later I deeply regretted it as I only min cashed. It was my last real chance to get a larger stack and target the small stacks for bounties. When this sort of thing happens, it can leave me deflated for several sessions because of the opportunity cost.

I have read The Mental Game of Poker book series but can’t seem to shake this. Admittedly, I’ve only been playing poker for a few months.
I imagine that after more than a decade in Poker you have personally experienced or heard about countless similar moments. I cannot fathom what goes through the minds of pros who final table at the WSOP for instance.

Would love to know your tips on this because, even early on in my poker journey, I can see it developing into a long-term obstacle.

View attachment 273393

Very interesting question. While I would never claim to be a mindset expert, your question resonated with me as I used to experience the same thing earlier in my career. My view looking back is that it was a result of uncertainty: not knowing the correct play in a lot of spots. For example, if someone shoved and I had 88 and didn't know what to do: well if I folded and ultimately ended up blinding out of the tournament I looked back and thought maybe I should have called there. Conversely if I called and ended up busting I'd think maybe that was a mistake, maybe I should have folded. Uncertainty coupled with a bad outcome led to regret.

As I got more experienced, less and less of these situations arose. So now if someone shoved, I knew whether it's a call or a fold (unless it's super close, in which case it doesn't make much difference in the long run). If I made the play which I knew to be correct and it didn't work out, I didn't feel the same regret any more.

Thanks for your question and I hope this helps!

 

[Dara OKearney]

What is your method on satellites ??

The one I explain at length in "Poker Satellite Strategy"

 

[Dara OKearney]

Hi Dara,

Stars has a lot of sats, where every 10th player qualifies, for instance $5.50 sats for the Big $55 or Hot $55.
Would you recommend these satellites or not, is it too much variance?
These sats are always turbo and hyper.
And what about late registering in these with 10BB - 20BB?

Hi,

I'm a little out of touch on specifics as I don't grind Stars sats any m,ore but I can't imagine these aren't good valie/

Late regging satellites is inherently very profitable for ICM reasons.

Good luck!

 

[Dara OKearney]

Hi, Dara!

Glad to know about your new PKO book.

Want to ask about shoving/calling ranges in sats - how its depends from buyin level of sat?

Thanks and GL on tables!

Good question: it basically depends on other player's shoving and calling ranges. At higher buyins most players will be fairly close to GTO ranges so you're better off sticking to GTO ranges yourself. At lower buyins, you'll see a lot of players with ranges that are either way to wide or too tight. We go into the adjustments you need to then make in the "Adjusting to imperfection" section of the book "poker Satellite Strategy" but the main point is when shoving into loose players, you need to tighten up quite considerably, and when shoving into tight players, you can widen your ranges. You'll see both types of bad at lower stakes so pay close attention to the other players at your table.

Good luck!

 

[Dara OKearney]

I understand that we need to be calling and raising wider where we cover someone, because we can win the bounty. How does this effect our ranges when they cover us? Do we need to be playing tighter because they have more incentive to call (reducing fold equity)? Or do we play the same way, or maybe even a few more hands, because we know their ranges are weaker than normal and we can get value from their playing more hands than they normally would?

Really good question, so good I tweeted it to see what people generally thought.

Since PKOs players have wondered what to do when they find themselves short in a PKO. Some players thought since we have less fold equity, we need to be tighter as we would in a normal mtt if people are calling too wide. Others argued that since being short is particularly bad in a PKO (if we are the shortest at our table we can't win any bounties until we double up), we "had to gamble" and be prepared to shove wider.

With the benefit of solvers we now know that both of these are wrong. If we shove tighter, we will continue to blind down too much and not be in a position to compete for bounties. But if we just shove our normal range plus a few more hands, a lot of the hands we will shove become unprofitable.

So what is the answer? The answer is to shove more high cards hands but to stop shoving our worst suited connectors. When calling ranges expand, high card hands go up in value as they can get called by worse and win even when they don't improve. Hands like 76s however go way down in value as calling ranges expand.

Against a tight range, say top 15%, A2o only has 31% equity and K2o just under 30%, while 76s has almost 37%. However, against a wide calling range, like any two cards, A2o has 55%, K2o just over 50%, but 76s only 45%. So A2o and K2o are profitable shoves even if we know we are always getting called, but 76s no longer is.

 

[malcolmt]

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

.thank you

 

[malcolmt]

I have been told a min raise pre flop is not respected in this format. What is the minimum size raise that would be respected for a chance at fold equity preflop? How is this determined?

Always put a decent bet.. make sure only 1 or 2 players can bet whn you bet.. 3 bet more.

 

[Dara OKearney]

Hi Dara and welcome.

Love 'The Chip Race' podcast.

The simplest for questions for you. When you pivoted to satellites was it exclusively so at the expense of other tourneys? I can't imagine it was but could you give an approximate idea how you allocated your time between satellites and other play?

Thanks for the welcome!

When I started playing satellites, I actually did specialise in them exclusively for a while. I had been playing sit n gos but they dried up so I was looking for somewhere else to apply my ICM skills. At the time the major sites all had T money concept where you could effectively cash in any satellite entries won. Over time I started mixing in normal tourneys. These days I play roughly one third satellite, one third PKOs and one third regular mtts.

 

[DS3]

Thanks for the welcome!

When I started playing satellites, I actually did specialise in them exclusively for a while. I had been playing sit n gos but they dried up so I was looking for somewhere else to apply my ICM skills. At the time the major sites all had T money concept where you could effectively cash in any satellite entries won. Over time I started mixing in normal tourneys. These days I play roughly one third satellite, one third PKOs and one third regular mtts.

Appreciate the reply, Dara. The answer surprised a little (in a good way). This remains one of the most absorbing threads on CC.

 

[moshie]

How do you find 4 max shoot out satellites? Is their an optimum strategy to playing them? When the field is 16 players

 

[drtedvoodoo]

Hi Dara,

Are there any particular HUD stats you focus on whilst playing satellites & PKO?

Thanks

 

[Dara OKearney]

Got this question on my own AMA but thought I would ask the expert.

How do you think PLO PKOs would play? My instinct is the equities run so close together that you can justify getting it in preflop with any four cards pretty much all the time, but in practice they play quite nitty.

They should play very loose given how little equity you need to get it in but people may not realise that. A PLO specialist told me once that normal PLO mtts are broken because on the final table the chipleader can just open 100% and with the constraints of ICM and how close the equities run the other players rarely have a hand strong enough to go with.

 

[lolshovaments]

I've been playing all kinds of poker, but never tried Satellites for real. Do you think is a good change for experienced STT/Spins players when it comes to adaptation?

Push/Fold plays a lead role when it comes to grind satellites, what do you say is the most important thing in this kind of game?

And last but not least, do you think Bounty/KO will be included in the major series around the world someday in the same proportion freezeouts and reentry are offered?

 

[malcolmt]

What is you tournament strategy?

 

[Bot_385984]

Hi,

Glad to hear you're having some success. DYMs (or DONs as they used to be called) are basically satellites: the strategy is exactly the same.Sky Matsuhashi realised this and bought my book to play them better and made a couple of videos, one a https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Grv0_lRzwhw and another of him https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8FR0kEFvzE

Hope these help!

Thanks Dara, much appreciated!

 

[Dara OKearney]

Hi Dara! My respects to his career. Since I am a regular satellite player I would like to know if it is a profitable long-term strategy ... what kind of emotional capacity is essential to achieve high. Thank you very much! Greetings from Argentina where we vibrate high with the deck !! good fumes

As you'll probably know if you play a lot of satellites, they can be very tough emotionally, particularly if you bubble. Bubbling a normal tournament is bad enough, but it's the difference between a min cash and zero. Bubbling a satellite on the other hand is the difference between first prize and nothing (since all the prizes are equal to first)! So you have to be able to handle this, particularly since the better you are at satellites the more often you'll bubble or near bubble.

Satellites are so tough mentally we have an entire chapter in "Poker Satellite Strategy" (contributed by Jared Tendler, author of "Mental Game of Poker") covering it.

 

[Dara OKearney]

Hi Dara,

I have a question .
I have noticed that when i openraise in ep i usually get called by certain players.
Even if i have f.e. AK and the flop is K42 rainbow and i make obviously a C-bet and get called where the turn is a 7o, i bet again and get called and river a 9 and i check where they bet potsize and when i call i see that they have k2o or 42o.
And sometimes i even fold this top top and show and then they show me they had totally nothing. Maybe AQo or so.

For short: i just don't know how to deal with calling stations who keep on calling my every open or reraise. Sometimes they have something and sometimes nothing.
I also tried playing only premium but noticed that this was not a good strategy for i get blinded out and hit the rails.

How can i adjust myself to these people that keep on calling in position of me?

P.S. also hope that we can get a signed edition of you new book whoever wins

The usual guidelines for calling stations apply: value bet thinner and don't ever bluff. Sometimes they'll show up with a better hand that they really shouldn't have but there's no point getting upset by the bad beats. In the long term their strategy is losing unless you react badly to it.

Good luck and thanks for the question!

 

[Dara OKearney]

Hi dara

Learning a lot from these posts thanks for that.

My question is I usually play KO tournaments but lately I've tried hyper turbo KO and not had much luck because my knowledge of shoving ranges for hypers isn't too good atm. Would u suggest staying away from these or learning to become better at them. I've read that hypers are not that profitable. Is this true

Kind regards Deri

Definitely stay away from them until you have your shoving ranges down. Correct preflop shoving and calling ranges are most of your edge in these, and even once you have them down you can't really have too much edge unless opponents are absolutely terrible.

Good luck and thanks for the question!

 

[UkoChebuko]

What do you think about the high variance in the satellites? I mean if you play 2$ satellite , top 10% paid, $20 ticket, then you play $20 tournament with 1000 people. For the satellites doesn't really matters how many is the players, more is better. But this is like you play 10k players tournament with $2 buy in. Right? Is this correct!? Nobody want to play with 10k players, they will do that "only for fun", "pure gambling", "lottery", "toto". Because the high variance.

And what about the knockouts!? Yes, you will win more often "some money". But how many times you will be at the first place!? This is the only way to take the money for your head. And this is "your money", you paid for the bounty for your head. Is this correct!? Is this a "huge variance" as well!?

Soffy for my bad English. What do you think? Thank you!

 

[daveshoelace]

Hi all - the winners of the giveaway were:

ChickenArise
RedGnom
moshie

Congrats - I have DM'd you

 

[RedGnom]

Hi all - the winners of the giveaway were:
ChickenArise
RedGnom
moshie
Congrats - I have DM'd you

Woohoo!:marchmell
Thank you very much for such giveaway!:hello: