Here's a question for those who regularly play the Sunday million, regardless of direct buy-in or satteliting in:

Do you think that anyone that can win a Sunday million seat potentially have a chance to go deep in the sunday million?

Basically, we have a lot of lower limit players who have done well in 4.40's, $20 and under mtt's, and whatnot. Is the jump in skill level between these mtt's and the sunday million big enough where it wouldn't be worth it for a lower limit player to take an "out of the bankroll" shot at the SM?

How big of a bankroll would you need to have to 'take a shot' one fateful Sunday?

Chris Moneymaker and Jamie Gold won the WSOP ME. In any tournament a run of great cards can do wonders...

the mil is populated with thousands of low stakes satellite winners, and it plays just like that.

Personally i believe that there are some really great players that just do not currently have the funds to play in the sunday millions. If they did even though the skill level is better they would be able to adjust their game and make a deep run. I've never played in the sunday millions, but that doesn't mean i couldn't compete. I'm finally starting to get the bankroll where i feel that i could start playing, even though i'm known as a low limit tournament player. But i also play for pretty good stakes in cash games .50/1, 1/2, 2/4, 3/6. Look at moneymaker if he didn't get into the ME cheaply, even though dispite what ppl think he's a good player. He would never have played because he didn't have the funds, and poker as we know it would be very different

I don't think the skill level is that high, you get more good players sure but there's still a helluva lot of satellite donks.
Pretty much everyweek there's one absolutely terrible player that reaches the FT.
BR for taking a shot at the mil? ~10K?

Personally if i was gonna buy in directly into the sunday millions, i would only be willing to risk like 10-15% of my bankroll. Currently it would take about 18% of my roll something i'm not willing to gamble with just yet.

There must be, considering how many of those sat tournies they run throughout the week. I'd be curious to know what the ratio is of buy-ins to sat seats in the Million.

well that's about 46 buyins... wouldn't you want approximately that for playing it normally?

I'm saying, basically, what %age of your BR would you be 'willing to lose' in order to take a shot at the Sunday Million? (given you normally don't play over a $20 buyin.)

Assuming reasonable skill level, what's the percentage chance of cashing in the Million? Not that we should be aiming for cash, but the chances of getting my money back (and then some) would affect how much of my BR I'd be willing to risk.

I think the $500 buyin millions play a lot differently than the $200, with many more lags in for the $200 looking to build a stack early or get out. Id think 60-70% satellite in? Ive only bought in twice, and played in 20 or so.

I've never been a massive sattelite fan, but am i the only one that thinks playing shootouts to the Sunday million is a stupid thing to do?

I really don't see why anyone would play in one, the chances of you winning a seat are slim, and then what happens if you win a seat? You're unlikely to cash if you play in it, and if you use the T dollars and say your ROI is 10%(which is being optimistic) your gonna on average get back $25.

Meh, when I'm playin seriously I want 100+buyins for my levels, so ~1K for $10 buyins then taking a shot at $20 buy ins.


Also in response to Sheiky and sats, I think the best value are prob the $39 or the $11+r normal sats.
The $8.80 6max double sats aren't bad value either thought they only run on like fri-sun i think.

The purpose of playing in a Satellite is to leverage a (perceived) skill advantage into an entry for a higher buyin than your bankroll can justify. Since I would guess that the majority of online players are actually under-bankrolled to buy in to the million. So the answer to your question is, no, its not stupid if your perceived skill advantage is real.

I find satellites ridiculously soft, especially the $3r and $11r. An average stack at the break is plenty to have a real shot at a seat.

After I win an entry to something I want to play in, I'll continue to play the sats and unfortunately, donk off the T$ I win somewhere else . I rationalize it because Im really only playing for entertainiment and for the shot at a major prize. I really should cash in more of the T$ I win instead of using them for $100+ buyins.

Double shootouts are most juicy when they are under-filled. If youre good at short table play you have a big edge in making the FT, and then there is usually cash down to the 7th or 8th spots, so TAG play early locks up a small profit, and then its a crapshoot to the seat(s)

T$ is something that OPR, pokerdb and sharkscope get distorted by. They dont track T$ wins (at least last time I checked), and dont know whether you buy in for real $ or T$.

I'm still looking for an answer to my question about shootouts: isn't it a whole lot harder to win a seat in a shootout, where you have to win a series of SnGs, than a regular sat where you just have to go deep enough in the tourney?

Yes.
Although you only need to win the first, if you're playing a full 11.70 DS I think like top 3 get seats.

OPR counts winning T$ just as winning $

Satellites represent value, plain and simple. Terrible players subsidize your buy-in. Try playing a couple of the $11 double shootouts on Friday and Saturday night. Pure valuetown.

Thats a change then. When I emailed them a while back they didnt count tourney satellites in the stats, and they definitely didnt go back and correct for it.

I know this is a bit off topic since it's not about the Million, but the best sat I've come across on Stars for those of us with smaller bankrolls are the $2.20's to the Sunday Hundred Grand. It runs every 1/2 hour, it's a regular speed, straightforward tourney (no rebuys or add-ons), they only get 100-130 players each time, and it pays out about one seat per 5 players ($11 entry into the Hundred Grand). A half-decent player could play these all day long and rack up the T$.

If you know how to play turbos the 45man sats are also like printin T$

I agree, the standard in the $500s and the $1,000s are reasonably high.
The standard in the $200 SM is crap. I'd say that the $215 Sunday Million is the easiest tournament, and highest ROI% tournament with a buy in of $50 or more.

As for how much I'd be willing to risk, it depends. Depends on my current financial situation. Like, if say I was on a heater, and practising good BR management, and decided to take a shot at the SM, I'd need like $2500 min. to take shot.

Actually, I tried to answer the question a few times and it's impossible. I'd be willing to lose 100% of my BR on the tournament if I was ready to redeposit, or if I just wanted to take a shot and didn't care about the outcome too much. If I was taking poker semi-seriously, I guess $2500 is the min. needed to consider taking a shot. If I was practising good BR management, and regularly played $50+ buy ins, but the SM was just a little high, $8-10k I'd need. To play it every single week, I'd want $17.5k min.
Impossible question to answer without more relevant details really. I will say I've taken a shot at it with $815, $1300, $300, $2300 in my bankroll, so that just shows how answers will vary.

The $1.10, 45 sats? They only offer 4 seats for 45 players, which is terrible, and they take a long time to fill.

$2.20 - 6seats.
They seemed to fill q quickly wheneva I play them.

I've played in the SM twice, and both times was when I won 2 seats in the same week. I think if I were to take a shot with a direct buy I would want about $2000-2500 in my bankroll.

I also agree that the field is overall extremely weak. Both times I was able to take advantage and chip up rather easily, and made a deep run once. Unfortunately I played like an ass the from like 100 down and didn't make the big score.

I prefer the FPP sattys because I haven't had the urge to save up for something in the store.

You might be thinking of the $2.20, 36-man turbos - those offer 6 seats. The 45's only offer 4 seats for $1.10. I have played several of the $2.20, 36's but I have yet to win a seat in that format. I find the regular $2.20's much more ripe.

They are both incredibly ripe, play a ton of both from work. I used to think it was a variance issue, because I would constantly believe that (between the 36man turbo or the regular MTT sat) one was > than the other, but it would change from week to week.

Finally, I've come to the conclusion that the MTTs are a higher ROI, but you can squeeze in 2 (or more) 36 man turbos in the time it takes to play one MTT, so your actually T$ per hour (unless you completely suck at turbos) will be significantly higher in the turbos. The main reason I still lean toward the turbos being the better source of $T is the emphasis on short-handed play and bubble-play shows up a lot sooner in the turbo, where you advantage over the field is even greater.

As an added bonus, taking a beat in a turbo isn't so bad because it's quick and there is another starting back up constantly. In the MTTs, that 3-outer that cost you an hour and a half of your life can put you on full-blown monkey tilt.

And I hate the format of the Sunday 100k, so I'd never actually use the $T for that. It'd take a revival of the Sunday Team Drafts to get me interested in ever playing the 100k again.

I haven't quite decided yet whether I have a bigger edge in regulars or turbos. The edge in each is different. What I don't like about turbos, particularly MTT turbos, is that the quickly increasing blind structure can negate many of your advantages over the field because it forces you to take chances for all your chips much earlier. Although my ROI so far in the $3.40 STTs is good (small sample), I find that I don't enjoy playing the turbos as much as regulars. I prefer a structure where there is a bit more time to see cheap flops with speculative hands and to build a stack with small ball. Turbos are basically: (1) hit a big hand early and double; or (2) if you don't double early, it's pushing time. And even if you do double through, the blinds rise quickly enough that there still isn't much opportunity to build a stack before you'll end up facing another decision for most or all your chips.

The other thing about the regular $2.20's is that because the field is small (100-130 people) and there is one seat for every 5 players, they don't take all that long to play.

The fact that people have no clue about how to adjust when blinds get high make turbos so much more profitable imo.
So turbos FTW.

You could be right, I'll have to wait for a bigger sample to draw my own conclusion. But it definitely seems that turbos come with more variance - the more often you are forced to push your chips in the middle, the more chances you have to bust out.

The Sunday Million play is probably only slightly better than say a $22 180 man tourney.

You have a few really good players mixed into a luckbox minefield. Last one I played, I had a big stack minraise UTG to like 12k. I shipped it from the BB for like 85k with KK and he INSTA-called with KQo (most overplayed preflop hand in poker?)

I usually play the $39 6 man turbo SNG Satellites - 1st place pays a seat. These are really easy also on Sunday mornings when donks are trying to qualify. If you consider yourself a strong SNG player, definitely play these on Sunday mornings (just steer clear of my tables

The same idiot that calls off 10% of his stack to see a flop in the MTT is the same idiot flat-calling off 1/2 his stack PF with suited connectors in a turbo. The only downside, of course, is you *do* have to pick up some cards eventually in turbos. But when you do, it's nigh impossible to not get paid on them.