This is an argument I see on occasion, if you win a satellite seat online (at Pokerstars for instance), what should you do with it?

1. Play the tournament for which the seat was supplied
2. Sell the seat for a slight bargain price and pocket the money
3. Use the seat as tournament dollars to gain you "free" entry into a number of other tournaments or SNGs.

Let me start by saying that I don't think one is more correct than the other - it really depends on your situation, why you played the satellite and other unknown factors. However, I do want to address a few things here.

1. Assuming you played the satellite to gain the experience of playing in the bigger tournament, then you should play that tournament. If you don't its equivalent to saying I will play in a tournament with a very narrow pay out scheme in order to sell my gains from it for less... In some cases, the tournament may seem like a crapshoot - but bear in mind, the satellites that you had to play to get there probably were much more difficult because of the narrow payout scheme.

2. When I was about to win the satellite I did, there were at least two people commenting on the table about their offer to purchase tournament dollars at a relative bargain. IN my case, I have earned T$215 - they were offering $190 cash. In my opinion, you should only do this when your unknown factors mean getting money out of your poker account to take care of life events. Some disagree with me on this, but as I said - the descision is up to you.

3. This one applies more for SNGs than for other multis, and essentially the reasoning is that I can play SNGs with the tournament money and have a "better" earn rate while playing the tournament dollars down to nothing.

With regard to the last argument, I don't really understand it, unless the satellite itself was a freeroll. If it was, then I think it can be prudent if you feel you are merely dead money in the tournament. However, I also feel that if you have about an average chance of making the money in the bigger tourney - go give it a try.

Just a few quick thoughts.

/d

i don't play multis much (and have no stars account) but i hear they'll let you doo these kind of deals which i think are good, are there other circumstances and implictions of deal making like this, i have no experience of this kind of stuff.

personally, i agree, play the bigger event you've qualified for, i don't see why else you'd play it (unless it was a freeroll) because winning the whole mullti, winner takes all, seems a long shot anyway as to be -EV if you don't want to try and parlay it into a main event cash.

UNLESS, something happens to your personal circumstances during the MTT and you need that money you could make by making the immediate deal.

This said, i have no problem with the practice of somepeople who play many single table tournies for the WSOP main event and then sell the entry to others for say $9000, if you're good enough in this situation, do it.

molina

I don't like the idea of selling at all. If you ever play sitngoes or multis then you will end up using them anyway, so why sell and lose money? Doesn't make sense to me.

I won my way into the 350K tourney on Stars in the $3 multi rebuy tourney. I only had to rebuy once and that was on the first hand when I called an all in with JJ only to lose to A8 offsuit. I had the 215 tournament dollars in my account because I couldnt play in the 350K and since I play in a basketball league every Sunday I probably wont have time to play in it for a long time so I am just going to use it for SNG's and other multis that I usually play. If I could play in the 350K though I would use my tournament dollars to play in it.

erm, i'm completely off the ball on this one, having never played on pokerstars. If you win any satellite you can keep the buyin in your account which you can spend on any tournament, even standard $5 SnGs?

is this standard procedure at other sites? i never play satellites so i'm clueless, never liked the idea of beating X hundred people and then have to do it again to get paid.

molina

At BoDog and FullTilt you get what they call tourny points. You can use them for any Trn or SnG that excepts points. You don't have to use them just for the Trn you won them for. You can't use them in a SnG or Trn that is cash only.

I have not won any at Stars because I don't play that site except for the BTP Trn and A few low buy in SnG's to get money for the Trn.

When you when a satelite at Stars you automatically get entered into the tourney that you won your way into, but if you can't play you just go to that tourney and click unregister and you get Tournament dollars that you can use on and tournament or SNG. If it is for the WPT or WSOP though I think you have to use it for one of those events.