I'm going to try and qualify by starting in the $1 Sit N' Go's and seeing if I can parlay that all the way up to a $5000 buy in!

Here are my results so far:

$1 Sub Qualifier: 6th -$1
$1 Sub Qualifier: 1st +$9
$10 Stage 1 Qualifier: 6th -$10
$10 Stage 1 Qualifier: 1st +$63
$73 Stage II Qualifier: 5th -$73
$73 Stage II Qualifier: 10th -$73
$73 Stage II Qualifier: 3rd -$73
$73 Stage II Qualifier: 10th -$73
$73 Stage II Qualifier: 10th -$73
$73 Stage II Qualifier: 1st +$527
$600 Stage III Qualifier: 1st +$4600
Total: +$4896

Next step: trying to qualify again in the scheduled tournaments

Cool. I got lucky only playing one TURBO and winning then going straight to the $9 one and squeeking out a win there and now am sitting on that $72 ticket wondering if I should squander it and play against you tonight.

Nice so far.

I just won a $68 seat!

sweet!

Don't get me wrong - I think it's cool that you're doing this, BUT...

in reality if you are trying to qualify for just a $1, then once you lose the $10 Stage 1 Qualifier, you should step back down to the $1 Sub Qualifier.

You are absolutely right, but I figured it would just take too long. So my plan is to move up a stage when I win one and only until I win one. If I win a stage III then I'm going to start all over again.

Cool. Since I only have $4.88 left in my account right now, I'm going to try to qualify for $1 as well - maybe I'll meet you somewhere in the middle, heh.

well, once that happens...i'll see you there

that is, once my deposit clears.

Have you done this before since 98? =]
I mean, surely there's no real value for a pro to play multi-stage satellites, or a satellite at all?

I've never heard of Ferguson or Matusow for instance playing a satellite last few years.

The value is in the story, whether for publicity purposes or just because it's funny and clever if he qualifies through a $1 SnG. Clearly, playing in the SnGs costs him money based on his hourly rate in any game. Hell, it probably costs him money compared to his hourly rate laying side bets on who takes what properties in Monopoly. But it's an interesting endeavor, nonetheless.

Monty

Multiple level qualifying satellites is a great way to get a lot of poker in, improve as a player, and have fun, for very little cash up front.

I have not even looked at the promotion. I cannot even remember receiving an email about it!

SUGGESTION: Send everyone a free entry (it is $1) to the SNG to the entire FCP community.

Follow the strategy Partypoker used to drive players to their early satellites for the Partypoker Millions Cruise promo. They gave away thousands of entries out to their community of players, and those were over $20 each in the early years.

There are so many online sites now that the "good sites" and the "smart sites" are catering to their player communities aggressively. FCP is both with a few glaring weaknesses which is up to the site to solve, not DN.

Drive players to the SNG by opening the door for a buck!

Drive attendance by picking a week (Any week!) and randomly give out free entries to the $1 satellite say, to 5% of the playing population for the week. If you want a success, you have to reinforce the playing traffic flow towards the event, IMHO.

Once I look it up I will give it a try.

I'm sure glad that I'm not in the position where I'm begging for free $1 SnG entries. Seriously, man, it's not that hard to find the resources to pony up a George Washington.

Missing the point of promoting traffic in sites completely.

This is not about *begging for dollars* but rather giving people that do not play in these qualifiers a reason to come.

Coax them into participating!

It is a comon misconception among *serious* poker players the value and promotional power of free entries and freerolls.

Very recently partypoker decided to maintain & grow their base of recreational players to drive traffic to their site. They started with 2000 player capped freerolls with $500 thrown in the prize fund, paying the top 220 winners. Yes, we *are* talking about 220th place making 85 cents or so .

Partypoker ran about 24 of them every day. Once they all started getting capped, they INCREASED the cap, first to 2500, then 3000, then 3500, ... you get the picture. Today they are capped at 7100 players, and have anywhere from $200 to $400 thrown in.

Cost to site = 24 x $500 = $12,000 a day.

Number of players => 24 x 7100 = 170,400 but some players play in multiple events, so let us say 50,000 individual players. Even if only 1% start playing at partypoker regularly given the income per median player partypoker is ahead.

Very rough numbers, so don't slinging a rope over a branch for the hanging.

The point I am making is that the idea of giving away small entries and running an aggressive freeroll program works.

In retail, the idea is get people into a store, then a percentage will buy something.

Poker sites are creating and pushing communities to bring basic recreational players in, with the idea that some of them will stay and play.

The good players (unless bored or broke ) just don't play in them, preferring entry fee tournaments with real prizes. I came in 4th in a 7,000 player freeroll (I was bored ) and made a few dollars, ... literally. Enough to buy a newspaper ... lol. I had to wade (for hours!) through a sea of wild squirrel poker players before the game started getting reasonable at say, 200 players. The next day I came to my senses and entered a $20 Limit Holdem tournament with no more than 350 players. It was tougher, it did not take as long, & my 11th place finish was a hell of a lot better!

So it is not about coming up with the cash, you are right, anyone can come up with $1 to play. The real challenge is getting them to participate.

Any update DN?

More news on how well the freeroll strategy is working for partypoker, they are now filling up with a player cap of 7,500 players. Ok, granted, there are a lot of squirrels playing, but the object of the game is to ATTRACT any and all players to the site, and it is working for partypoker.

It is not unreasonable to ask: "Why not use this successful method to build up traffic and players at FCP?"

Are you going to be playing anymore tonight?

I'm sitting in a Stage III qualifier right now,, but am not sure it will go. There are 6 people seated, so it looks promising.

DosRoquitos here:

FIRST TRY
Won stage 1 (9$)
Won stage 2 (72$)
Stage 3 (600$) 3/10

SECOND TRY
Won Stage 2 (72$)
Stage 3 (600$) 5/10 (congrats to my buddy JoeytheDonk)

I REALLY HOPE THE THIRD TIME IS THE CHARM FOR ME!!!!

BOTH STAGE 3 TOURNYS WERE EXTREMELY TIGHTLY PLAYED AND THE PERSON THAT RECEIVED ACES AND SETS WON BOTH TIMES. NEXT TRY I THINK I MIGHT BLUFF MORE AND PLAY MORE AGGRESSIVLEY.

DOS

Well i just won another stage 3 ticket but unfortunatley the third try was not the charm for me

I played more aggressive at the beggining, but quickly realized this table was a lot looser than the first two i played. I won a pot early and then switched back to ROCK mode. Made it down to final 3 people with the stacks as follows:

DosRoquitos: 6,800
Sonsto: 3,200
other dude: 15,000

The other dude started to try and bully us into fighting for second but there was too much on the line for first to fight for second. Other dude put Sonsto all in and he called with one over card (prob thinking he had the best hand). I am mentally preparing to take this Donk on HU when Sonsto over hits on the river. These were our stacks after that hand:

DosRoquitos: 6,500
Sonsto: 6,000
other dude: 11,500

Im on the SB with Q10 suited and with the blinds 400/800, i just decide to limp in. BB (sonsto) raises it just a double. I call the 800 and the flop come xxQ with two .. I check he bets and i go all in. He calls and shows KJ ... With two cards to come I need to dodge a King a Jack or a Spade. The turn was a harmless red five. With 13K in the pot, a 2to1 advantage going into the river, once again all i could think about was taking this Donk on HU for the 5K ticket.

The river was a King...

Oh well thats poker maybe the fourth try will be the charm??????

DOSROQUITOS

Last Updated June 18th, 2006.

Make it a little fun, i can go with that. Since there are 2 formats, i will try each s&g and regular. The results so far:

S&G
sub qualifier 8/10, cost 1.10
sub qualifier 4/10, cost 1.10
sub qualifier 2/10, cost 1.10, almost

regular tourney:
stage 1 1/20, cost 7
stage 2 10/14, no cost
stage 1 1/18, cost 7
stage 2 8/9, no cost
stage 1 3/20, won 12, seacumber and brvhrt won the 2 tickets
stage 1 1/19, cost 7
stage 2 3/23, no cost
stage 3 1/61, won 5200 entry, woohoo looking forward the big one.

cost: 24.30, profit 5105, doing this on Daniel's prompting: priceless!

This is how I'm trying to do it, although this will probably be my last shot.
So far, after 4 or 5 losses in the $1, I lucked my way through one.
I then meant to play the regular $10 one, but accidentally went to a Turbo one, which I hate. I managed to luck into 2nd place for another $10 ticket + $7. So far, I'm ahead of the game by a couple bucks plus the ticket. Three more steps and I'm on my way to Spain.

I just hate the Turbos so much I can't justify starting over at $1, and seeing as the odds of getting to real money is so low, the $10 ones hardly seem justifiable based on my skill.

wow, my seat cost me around 50 bones and i thought that was good, looks like you beat me...

24.30 is pretty damn good but you aint got nothing on big Mike, the seat cost him exactly 1$! he won 4 sit and gos back to back to back to back on his 1st attempt, what an animal

congrats again, this should be fun.

that BIG Mike is good, tough to beat $1. Looking forward to the tourney and hopefully meeting up on Barcelona with all the FCPers

sound like your adding a bit of fun to the mix, nice going

That's quite an achievement by Big Mike! I got fed up after 2 $1 turbos, and decided to just try and qualify from the $10. I like the increasing stack sizes in higher stages, nice idea that.

First time round I'm going to try the Sit and Go route, then I might have a go at the Multi-Tables.

Results so far:

SubQualifier : 2nd : -$1.10
Subqualifier : 3rd : -$1.10

Stage 1 : 1st : +$63
Stage 2: 1st : +$527
Stage 3 : 1st : +$4600

Cost : $12.20. Profit : $5187.80

Job Done.

ty Ecclesbury Good luck to you as well! Believe me...I'm donkified in this tourney comin' up...quite a few talented FCP players are going to make it in, like Clint and Vatche and CoinFlipper, and KidPoker himself...I'm just a donator.

But it was a nice run to win I'll tell you what. Waking the whole house up as I march my *** up and down the house yelling FCP! FCP! FCP! after taking it down must have been hilarious to see.

I look forward to all the tourneys involved with this ticket...both freerolls AND the big one in (now)November.

Good luck to all

Well, it's done.

Despite telling myself I was going to play the stage 3 at the weekend I just couldn't wait so sat down to one that was almost full.

2 hours later and I have a seat! I am buzzing right now! Not quite Big Mike terrirory, but I'm pretty happy with a cost of $12.20.

Looking forward to it, good luck everyone already in, and those trying to qualify.

I should also include this miracle moment that was definately the turning point of my tournament after a slow start. Rounders08 if you read this, I am very sorry about this, I should have been walking:

NO_LIMIT TEXAS_HOLDEM $580+$20 (Real Money), #796,614,225
Stage 3 Poker Classic Qualifier Single Table Tournament, 2 Aug 2006 7:22 PM ET

Seat 1: Ecclesbury ($2,800 in chips)
Seat 4: Adde2 ($5,550 in chips)
Seat 5: batmanalan ($2,550 in chips)
Seat 9: rounders08 ($3,175 in chips)
Seat 10: TxHoldmLoser ($10,925 in chips)

ANTES/BLINDS
TxHoldmLoser posts blind ($100), Ecclesbury posts blind ($200).

PRE-FLOP
Adde2 folds, batmanalan folds, rounders08 bets $600, TxHoldmLoser folds, Ecclesbury bets $2,600 and is all-in, rounders08 calls $2,200.

FLOP [board cards KH,2C,5D ]


TURN [board cards KH,2C,5D,JS ]


RIVER [board cards KH,2C,5D,JS,QH ]


SHOWDOWN
Ecclesbury shows [ 10D,AD ]
rounders08 shows [ AH,AS ]
Ecclesbury wins $5,700.

SUMMARY
Dealer: rounders08
Pot: $5,700
Ecclesbury, bets $2,800, collects $5,700, net $2,900
Adde2, loses $0
batmanalan, loses $0
rounders08, loses $2,800
TxHoldmLoser, loses $100

Is there a way to see how much I've spent to qualify for the event? Is there like a tournies entered history info somewhere available??

If you use the downloadable(is that a word) client, and have statistics on...you should be able to get an idea of what tourneys you've been in to qualify. I don't know how far it goes back.

Or...if you ask real nice and send him a bribe...InfoBob might be able to hook ya up.

WELL I HAVE FINALLY WON MY POKER CLASSIC TICKET!!

I CAME UP SHORT IN 2 320 STAGE 3 MTT.

THEN I BOUGHT INTO A STAGE 2 SNG AND WON IT.

THEN MADE IT HU IN THE STAGE 3 SNG FOR ALL THE MARBLES WE SWITCHED 4 TO 1 CHIPLEADS 3 TIMES. WE WENT FROM 20K VS 5K BACK AND FORTH FOR LIKE A HALF HOUR. I WORKED HIM DOWN TO 7K AND HE PUSHED ALL IN. I CALLED WITH ACE 6 OF DIMES AND HE SHOWED 106 OFF.
BLANK BLANK BLANK BLANK BLANK AND I WON THE 5G TICKET. WOOHOO.

SEE YA THERE

DOS

Congrats Rocket Man!! See you in November! It's going to be a good one.

Shame you just missed out on the freeroll! A good showing from the FCP crowd in that one.