Potential pitfalls of being an Alternate

[palman]

A few things I noticed:

The way the alternate process works is that once 10 people get knocked out, 10 alternates all go to the same table. All the alternates are sitting in the bleachers by the featured table, so you get to see everyone. None of this I'm entirely certain on, so correct me if I'm wrong.....

After talking to people about what # alternate they were compared to when they bought in, it seemed like the first 10 alternates were the first 10 to buyin, the 2nd 10 alternates were the second 10 to buyin, etc. If this is the case, it is entirely possible to fill an entire table with friends. Since it's all speculation and even if it wasn't friends can play straight up together, but when we were waiting together I definately saw 2 well known online friend/players waiting in the alternate area (where there were supposed to be no spectators) and they got up at the same time as soon as one of the tables was called. I never went to the table to investigate whether they were actually playing together.

Furthermore, I would NEVER suggest being an alternate. The play at my table was phenominal. I played for nine hours (we started at 3) and never saw one hideous mistake. The only time 2 deep stacks went all in pre it was AA vs KK every time (and this happenned 9 times, in fact, when KK went all in preflop at my table it never won. QQ sucked out on it once when QQ was semi short) I remember maybe 3 preflop mistakes in those 9 hours. Postflop play no one did anything crazy either. The only good part about it was that everyone was playing tight so you always knew where you were. This makes sense, since the alternates are all going to be people who bought in for 10k, won a 1k sat the day or two before, or perhaps won one of those full tilt things that were running. There weren't any $5-$200 satellite winners (i.e. fish) at my starting table.

Sending the alternates one at a time to the busted player is obviously an extreme hassle, but it would solve both of these potential issues.