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{sidebar id=4} Ken Adams Busts Out Early In Big Poker Tourney, But Can Redeem Himself Before Flying Home 

 noon the $1500 No Limit Hold'em event got under way. Unfortunately, through a combination of poor decision making and bad luck I busted out mid-afternoon. My flight was not until 11:30 pm, so I went over to the hotel and checked out. I then settled in at the satellite tables to try to redeem myself before going home.

The first one I played cost $275. I had stayed away from the lower buy-in single table satellites for the most part, as the small number of starting chips plus the short rounds make it more of a crapshoot than the higher buy-in satellites. The $525 and $1030 satellites do not become crapshoots until the end when the blinds get very high relative to the number of chips you have — at that point it becomes an all-in contest between the final two or three players for who can make the best hand. But with the tournament still under way and most of the better players still in action, the satellite line was mostly for the small buy-in events.

While the cheaper single table satellites turn as much on luck as skill because of the structure, the good news is that the skill level of the players is so much lower it often compensates for the increased role of luck. That was certainly my experience in this particular table.

Most of the players were passive and straightforward. When they bet they had a good hand; when they didn’t have a good hand they checked and folded. It was easy to steal a lot of pots after the flop, regardless of what I held. And if they had any piece of the flop they called all the way to the river, even when they should have known they were beaten. The cards cooperated, and when it got down to me and one other player, we chopped the money in accordance with our chip counts. I had about 75% of the chips, so I took $1,875. I also won a $400 last longer bet, so it was a profitable table for me.