Satellites Soar!

It certainly seems that for the past two years amateurs have begun taking over major poker tournaments across the country. Has anyone else noticed it? For every experienced veteran like Doyle Brunson or Sam Farha, there's now a new up-and-comer like Chris Moneymaker or Greg Raymer that suddenly explodes onto the scene.

How has this been happening? How come players no longer have to put in their years of dues in numerous tournaments to work their way up to that final table in the World Poker Tour Championship? One word, satellites! Though we're all grateful to Benny Binion for basically inventing the poker tournament, novices like me are even more thrilled with Eric Drache, a genius who invented the satellite tournament.

What is the satellite tournament? To put is simply, it's a poker tournament whose ultimate prize is entry into a larger tournament. Satellites have smaller buy-ins than the larger tournaments and can be entered via local casinos or even online sites. Due to the low cost, if you win a satellite tournament, you obviously have a lot less of your own money on the line. However, the catch is that you will have to pass many, many more players to win. Basically, satellites are your way in the back door, your golden ticket, and for a good player, it can give you that extra push to start your career.

Set up at casinos across the country or online sites in conjunction with larger tournaments, satellite tournaments give local players a shot to sit at a tournament table. For example, a single entry fee for the World Poker Tour Championship at the Bellagio in Las Vegas is valued at $25,500 where it is only $70 bucks at the Limelight Card Room in Sacramento.

It really does work! Las year over 30 winners of both online and on-hand satellite games had a chance at the World Poker Tour Championship alone!

Believe it or not, satellite poker came into popularity around 1983, when Thom McEnvoy became the first satellite player to capture the title of World Champion (and win the coveted bracelet). Before then, the $10,000 buy-in was just too much for regular people.

But when World Series of Poker director, Eric Drache, created the satellite tournament, all of a sudden regular folks who couldn't afford the normal buy-in, became contenders. The addition of online sites offering satellite games only boosted the concept. Since then, satellite playing has skyrocketed, with anywhere from 5-10% of current tournaments made up of the satellite contingent.

Though it sounds fairly simple there's a lot more to it. There are almost as many formats for poker satellite tournaments as there are tournaments themselves. There are single table, two-tier, multi-table, and of course online tournaments. Multi-table satellites are like regular tournaments, and two-tiers are basically (though you can buy in for a higher price into tier two if you were eliminated in tier one). Limit and no-limit Hold'em are the most popular satellite games, though there are others being played.