Rethinking the $6 Satellites

You know those $6+$0.60 SNG’s on FullTilt that I mentioned before? The ones that I thought would be a great way to earn entries to the larger tournaments? Yeah, after further review, I don’t like them.

It’s not that they aren’t winnable, they most certainly are, it’s just that they take for ever to finish. The stupid $26 token isn’t any where close to being worth the amount of time required to win it. From now on I’m just going to pay the $26 up front.

The first time I tried one of these SNG’s I was surprised at how long it took to eliminate the final two players once we got down to the bubble. I figured it was as anomaly and that I just ended up with a bunch of real conservative players.

Well, I tried again last night, and we were down to six before the first break. I was hoping everyone would just hit the “I’m ready” button to skip the break since I figured the tournament would be over in a few minutes. The blinds were getting up there and there were two real short stacks who I didn’t think could hold on much longer.

What happened next was the most ridiculous refusal of the stupid short stacks to lose an all-in battle that I have ever seen. They just would not go away. Very few hands were actually played out. Most times a pre-flop raise or bet on the flop would win the hand. Often the big blind would win by default. And in all-in confrontations the shorter stack was like 97-0.

Towards the end I could tell everyone was getting frustrated. Two of the players were openly complaining when the short stacks would stay alive. I think I was just a little more patient than everyone else because they started pushing with more readily and calling all-ins with less than optimal hands trying to bust someone. Finally 88 ran into 99 and it was over.

So I played pretty damn good poker for almost two hours and to show for it I have a token to another tourney in which I will probably lose. I’m going to have to rethink that plan.