Quick guide to satellite qualifying for big events

[adanthar]

I don't pretend to know everything about sats, but they are my strongest game, and I've made bankrolls from scratch on 4 separate sites solely through qualifying for big ticket stuff or taking the money very cheaply. I am gonna make some fairly big assertions here that I don't want to take the time to/sometimes can't prove, but believe to be right:

-When you understand how the mid and late game in a multiple seat awarding satellite works, your edge is *far* greater than in a sat which only awards one seat [I think this has to do with LAG's and calling stations accidentally playing correctly more often in the latter];
-Your $/hour is far higher in events with bigger buyins that take less time (duh), and, less obviously, award more seats;
-As a minor aside, if you are trying to qualify for something *very* cheaply or build a bankroll, the Party Steps (especially miniSteps) are your friend, much more than you would possibly expect*;
-Related to the first point, your edge in a sat that pays multiple seats over a bad player is exponentially greater than normal. However, the corollary is that a great player has a bigger than normal edge over you. [The specific edge is related to having the table covered in the midgame and open pushing/calling pushes in the endgame.]

[*I am open to a $1000 or more wager that I can make it from a miniStep 1 (5+1) to a miniStep 5 (400+30) playing on $30 or less. I'd make it less than that but I've gotta leave room for aces getting cracked. Of course, this blatantly ignores $/hour.]

Having gone through the random assertions, here's some conclusions that you can draw from them:

1)Satellites are a lot more valuable when they pay lots of seats, don't take very long and have lots of dead money. The Stars turbo rebuys are probably the best sats in online poker.
2)Conversely, sats that pay one seat either reward SNG players over MTT players, are just plain bad value, or both, due to the decreased edge you have over the field and the decreased value of a large stack/proper pushbotting. The Stars regular 33r (which has 400+ players and pays out 1 trip) downright blows.
2.5)Special case: due to the way that good players filter to the top and are then pitted against each other, the double shootouts are horrible and should be avoided at all costs. I firmly believe only the top 8-10 people in a given shootout have any edge at all, and you have a much lower chance than usual of being in that 10. [This is kinda like the Steps, but not really, because in a Step situation you can get into a 430 SNG that pays 5 spots for $30. In a DS you are paying $175 for, at best, around a 17% chance of playing in a $1500 SNG that only pays one spot and will have The Shrike and four other equally skilled guys in it. That deal sucks.]
3)I dunno, I said this guide would be quick so insert your own conclusions here. I'll just close it out with this: if I was offered a choice between a 1000 player field that paid out 100 seats and a 10 player field that paid one, I would pay three times the vig to play in the first one. Yes, I honestly think the difference is that great.