The Lucky Donut

I can't believe i haven't realised until today just how much added value there is in the PokerDome satellites.  I've only made it to the main satellite once, mostly because I regularly manage to forget that the $20 freezeout qualifier starts at 8.15pm.  They're not bad themselves, often a small overlay to make up the two guaranteed seats into the next round.

Today I was thinking about buying in direct, simply because the package on offer was for the tournament taking place whilst we are in Vegas at Christmas. Then, true to form, I managed to miss the start and I kicked myself harder than usual after I noticed just how juicy this satellite was.  They guarantee two seats for Vegas - kind of essential to make sure the TV show goes ahead.  What I didn't realise, and perhaps I just wasn't paying close enough attention or maybe they just don't a big enough deal about it, is that one seat is added to the prize pool and as far as I can tell it's added regardless of the actual entries.  This week there were 69 players, paying $200 each.  That's $13800 in the prize pool, which would be just shy of funding the two $7000 seat prizes.  But rather than just add $200 to make it up, there was in fact $6800 up for grabs in consolation cash.

Not only that, but they paid the whole final table - 9 prizes from 69 runners is a little flatter than usual, and makes it just that little bit more appealing for a tournament that's not exactly within my bankroll.  A $200 online tournament is definitely out of my comfort zone to buy in direct.  I even get cold feet when it comes to using PokerStars T$ or W$ for the actual events I've qualified for! But when you're actually getting, effectively, $300 worth of seat for $200 I'm going to find this hard to resist!

Of course, if I can actually remember the satellites this week it won't be an issue..