The satellites to the Aussie Millions are starting this weekend and given that at about this time last year I won my seat through a $640 PartyPoker satellite and that I then went on to win the tournament, I wanted to give my thoughts on the qualification process.
A good bankroll management rule that I made up when I was starting out was that I couldn’t enter a tournament where 1st place was more than my bankroll.
After some success I broke the rule quite a bit, but I think in terms of tournament variance and bankroll discipline most players would do well sticking to it.
HOWEVER, I always allowed myself the chance of a big score by trying to satellite into the big events. If you want to take a shot it’s definitely the best way to go about it, you get to keep your costs low while having the possibility of a huge potential return.
Satelliting in also has other advantages. All you need to do is win a seat and PartyPoker takes care of the rest. You don’t need to worry about getting the cash for the buyin to Australia, about booking accommodation or any other logistical/administrative things.
They’ll buy you into the event, book you a room for 10 nights at Crown Casino and organise a couple of parties for all the qualifiers. Basically, all you need to do is book a flight to Melbourne.
In fact, before the Aussie Millions I qualified through PartyPoker for a WSOP seat and a couple other live events and now that I can compare it to organising the trips myself, I can honestly say that I miss the ease of winning a package.
The best way to go about winning a seat
This year there’s a good variety of qualification routes. If you’re prepared to play through 4 levels you can win a seat for free. So theoretically you can win a couple million dollars for a $0 outlay.
Actually with the variety of different paths all players have a realistic shot of getting through to the Aussie Millions if they’re persistent enough and have some cards roll their way.
I think the best way to go about winning a seat would be to pick a satellite level at the same level buyin you’d usually play and try to move up from there. Last year, I satellited in through the final stage of the Australian and New Zealand path.
I can remember the satellite quite clearly, I had one double up with [Qx][Qx] to [Ax][Kx] early before cruising to the final table. There were 4 short stacks and 6 seats to be won.
The chipleader took it as his personal mission to annihilate those shorties and despite getting his money in badly to all four of them he ended the final table in about 10 minutes. Needless to say I was very happy with that and the next day I booked a flight down to Melbourne.
In terms of deciding whether or not to come all the way down to Australia for a poker tournament it’s really a no-brainer. It’s summer here and at that time of the year Melbourne’s great.
Besides playing in a topnotch poker room in one of the world’s premier events, you can catch some Aussie Open tennis and watch our cricket team belt the Poms at the MCG. Also, you could easily make a holiday of it after the tourney’s over and head to Sydney, Queensland and wherever else.
Obviously I’m a bit biased but in terms of poker tournament destinations, this is the nuts.
