WSOP - WSOP Qualification Strategy

Freerolls

Many poker sites offer the chance to get to the World Series of Poker for free. They offer freeroll tournaments or special giveaways to their customers. Obviously this is the best way to get in but these tournaments usually offer few seats to a massively large field of players. Regardless, it is very useful to seek out these tournaments.

Satellite Tournaments

The usual route for most non professional poker players to get a seat at the WSOP is to win or place at a satellite tournament. The strategy required to do this depends on the structure of the satellite tournament. There are three main types of satellite tournament:

Winner Qualifies Only

This Strategy is fairly simple. You have to play smart, aggressive poker because you have to win all the chips. Never be afraid go all-in. The absolute worst thing to do in this type of tournament is to get blinded away. Do not give away your chips without a fight. If you are fairly new to poker or if multi-table tournaments are not your specialty, then this type of satellite could be for you. A lot of people playing this type of satellite may be so used to their standard multi-table strategy that it handicaps them. These people could play too conservatively and end up wasting their time. Furthermore, there is a very high luck factor in these tournaments, so it really does give a newer player a chance at reaching the WSOP.

Low Buy-in Satellite Strategy

At the end of a satellite tournament, the small stacks will be attacked by the larger stacks. The key is to avoid being that small stack in the later rounds. You want to be at least a medium-sized stack as the later rounds near, so you are not the one people are trying to eliminate.

If you are able to build a decent stack size, you will be able to survive the tournament without being frequently contested. Your method of survival is primarily stealing blinds. When you have a larger stack, you will be more able to steal blinds in the middle and later rounds. Winning these blinds can really pad your stack size because the blinds get to be fairly large.

To do this you need to play aggressively in the early rounds. Do not be scared of getting into confrontations. Basically, confrontations at the beginning of the tournament are fine. You are going to have to get lucky to win this type of satellite anyway, so you are going to have to get in there and gamble at some point. If you are able to build a big stack, you will be able to keep on building your stack later by stealing the blinds. People will not want to challenge you since you can eliminate them, so you will win a lot of important pots uncontested. If you are consistently able to steal the blinds, you will be much more able to gain that WSOP package.

Check out WSOP 2007 Qualifying Packages