Play Your Way to WSOP: Satellite Tournament Online

In 2003, Chris Moneymaker brought home a staggering $2.5 million and the World of Series Poker (WSOP) title. Moneymaker qualified his way to the championship by winning an online poker satellite tournament.

The year after, Greg Raymer bagged the $5 million pool prize. He, too, qualified to the WSOP championship through an online poker satellite tournament.

Since Chris Moneymaker got the prize and the title, playing in online poker satellite tournaments has dramatically increased.

Unlike land-based satellite tournaments, getting into an online poker satellite tournament is much cheaper. Buy-ins and entry fees are significantly smaller than those paid to join land-based tournaments.

If a wood-and-cement casino requires a thousand dollars for the buy-in and ten dollars for the entry fee for instance, online poker rooms may charge only eleven dollars for the buy in, and a dollar for the entry fee. By large, the market pool of online poker rooms includes gamblers with little bankroll.

Some online poker rooms also charge buy-ins ranging from a hundred dollars to two hundred. An online poker satellite tournament with heftier buy-in generally has more seat offerings to the WSOP. On the same note, an online poker satellite tournament with a smaller buy-in typically offers minimal number of seats . For instance, a poker room might offer one seat for every hundred players.

As it is in wood-and-cement poker rooms, the entry fee is typically between 6 to 10 percent of the buy in. Thus, if the buy-in is a hundred dollars, you might have to pay between $6 to $10 entry fee.

If you win a WSOP seat through an online poker satellite, the poker room, generally, will shoulder your hotel accommodation plus provide an allowance for your WSOP satellite tournament. At the WSOP, you get to meet and you get to compete with different poker players from different points of the globe.

When we talk of buy-ins and entry fees of an online poker room, we talk of tens and hundreds of dollars. When we talk of the WSOP prize, we talk about millions. What an online poker room offers is the opportunity for its players to get the top prize at a very low entry cost. What Chris Moneymaker and George Raymer have shown in WSOP 2003 and 2004 is that to covet the WSOP prize, one doesn't need to stake too much. In an online poker satellite tournament, the price is low for a prize so high.