Stars T$/W$ System and Satellites

[BadgerPro]

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Full Tilt obviously does fine getting players to play its sats and has no problem filling its tourneys so I can't see Stars forcing you to play your first seat hurting their business.

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Hey Badger have to disagree with you somewhat here. I find Full Tilt's sats to be very low populated on too many occasions. I rarely find one with a nice sized field at the hours I play. Usually I'm just looking for a sat as a screen filler during a session. For example the $24 + $2's (1 in 9) to the FTOPS are more like a 2-3 table sit n go with only 2-3 seats awarded during much of the non-prime time hours. These are of no interest to me when I can play a $36 + $3 or an $11R on Stars with a significantly larger sized field.

Because of this Full Tilt doesn't get as much of my Satellite play as Stars does.

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You have to realize that this is because Full Tilt isn't as big of a site as Stars. When they have their $500k on Sundays it gets about half the runners Stars Million does at the same buyin. So for their sats to get half the runners Stars does at off peak times makes sense.

If you look at the sats that FT runs directly before an event they are getting the same number of runners as Stars sats (with half the player base). Their big 150 seat turbo freezeout directly before the 500k gives out over 300 seats.

The $100 turbo freezeout to the $1k tonight had 158 runners. The $8.80 turbo rebuy to the $163 had 112 only but considering that they have two big tourneys running tonight I thought that was pretty good. They also filled 3 $100 turbo 54 player freezeouts to the $1k. Stars had 172 and 211 runners in the two $11 turbo rebuys for their $162 tonight.

You also have to realize that many players are playing the Stars rebuys just for the T$. While some players on Full Tilt I'm sure are working on multiple seats just for money at least they are all actually playing in the event and not just grinding the sats.

I understand casual players who aren't sure if they can play the event like the idea of not being locked in but I've felt quite strongly for a long time that if you're playing in a sat to an event you should be committed to playing that event.

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As an after thought to writing this I think if they want to keep the current system but make sats that run the same day as an event "must play seat" sats that would work and might even be the best of both worlds. That way playing a sat on Monday for the Sunday Million doesn't lock you in but at the same time forces people to only play the ones directly before the event if they actually want to play it. Obviously if you are playing a sat for the event that takes place the same day you should know if you can play the event or not.

The warning could easily be displayed in the upper right of the tourney lobby and while there might be some confusion during the first week or two of this people would quickly catch on.