[SteveM]

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Congrats! Very cool and encouraging...

Any tips on how you approached this / observations at the different steps / times of day or week that seemed better to play / other advice you can share?

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Sure, I don’t know if this will be helpful to anyone, but here goes:

My strategy was nothing very special. In the early steps I tried to take advantage of mistakes by other players who didn’t adjust to the satellite structure. I basically played TAG poker and tried not to get too cute. I’d play conservatively until we got into the “do over” zone and then I’d open up a lot and go for the win. But often my “wins” would be second place finishes, where I’d sit back and let two others go at it until one was dead or crippled. Reads on opponents were crucial in the latter steps. I normally play 4-6 $16s at once, but once I reached level 3, I just played one table at a time. Paying extra attention paid off huge. It allowed me to ID the strong/weak players and their patterns more easily. Rather than tangle with players that were better than me, I sometimes just let them kill my opponents for me without risking my stack. 2nd is just as good as 1st. If I got short stacked late, my tight table image was usually good for a surprise resteal or two, and I’d get back into relative safety. When this plan didn’t work or the conditions weren’t right, I switched to plan b and started playing very aggro (with appropriate reads). Sorry there are no secrets to divulge – pretty basic stuff. And lots of luck. Not that I relied on suckouts (don’t remember any big ones offhand) but just AVOIDING bad beats, winning the occasional coinflip, etc. takes a LOT of luck.

I didn’t practice table selection until step 4 or 5 – just played them when I had a chance. After that, I avoided as many 2p2ers and other monsters as best I could. I checked out some step 6s before playing them to see how the 7th place bubble and the weird prize structure would play out. For step 6 I used OPR and SS to check out opponents as they registered and I passed up a few tourneys when I saw too many good players there. In one of them there were 5 players in the 99%+ range and another guy at 98%. Apparently, other players do this, too, because as I watched one relatively soft table fill for about 40 minutes, two 99%ers jumped in at the last minute just as I tried to register. The approx. OPR ratings of the players at my step 6 were 99+, 99+, 98, 77, 75, 68, 43, n/a, and me (another n/a because I don’t play MTTs). I was happy with that.