A friend and I carpool to the casino on Sunday noontime. We were both shocked that there was not enough interest for any WPT satellite! The person who is trying to organize a rake-free WPT league went on a weekday to play a satellite, but there was never enough interest for him to play one. A forumer went on another weekday but gave up and left before any satellite started. I was about to go on Thursday when I found out that there were more than 10 people on the interest list, but I was told by the poker room that a satellite won't be held that night so I at least saved the trip.
A forumer was thinking that the higher fees for this year's satellites would lead to a backlash, and I strongly disagreed that the gamblers would notice enough to care, but so far, I have not seen a single $460 satellite run, which is actually a worse value than the $170 satellites because the decreased starting chips to 2000 and 20-minute blind length are too low to justify the higher cost. For the $170 satellites that I have seen, I see very few repeat players, e.g., the busted players make negative comments and refuse to sign up again.
My friend and I play the 2/5 NL cash game, hoping there will eventually be enough satellite interest. I was in a juicy loose table, with preflop raises to $65 or $102,
but I lost with QQ, JJ, 99, several AK, and KQ after flopping top pair with an open-ended straight draw. My friend gave up on the satellite and drove to Seneca Casino since he is just about the only Canadian I know who can beat the 30% withholding tax and high rake of Seneca's weekly tournaments.
In one of my last hands, I limped on the puck with
The SB raised to $35, and all four limpers called so I also called. The flop was something like
The original raiser bet $150. I was ready to fold my flush draw, then a huge stack called, giving me the implied odds to call too. The turn was
The raiser checked, then the huge stack went all-in. Having the second nuts with a royal flush draw, I obviously called. The SB folded and the huge stack showed a lower flush draw. After losing all day with high pocket pairs and AK, I finally won a pot of over $1,000 with T-8.
Unfortunately, the juicy table soon broke up and I decided to take my first ever comp. with my Players Advantage card by getting a free buffet.
After the decent buffet, my friend had not yet returned from Seneca to drive me home so I signed up again for the cash games and satellites. There were 12 players on the interest list for the satellite, so one was eventually scheduled for 10 PM. The players were called over, but a few had already given up and left. Fortunately, the satellite staff was able to draft a couple of the cash game players to play the satellite, so it finally got underway at 10:25 PM.
I busted a couple of players and had more than half the chips with five players left. As forumers 13CARDS & former WPT TD "Fallsview" and other poker room staff know, I occasionally write down my hands. Unfortunately, there was one floor person who mistakenly thought that this was illegal and sternly told me to stop using my pen and paper. I informed him that I had already cleared this before and he said he was going to verify with the new WPT TD, but I knew that person was not on duty since I had already tried to phone him back earlier in the day. I saw a severe penalty imposed on a player in last week's satellites that I felt was unjustified, so I didn't want to risk getting an unjustified penalty myself while being chip leader.
I later verified with another floor person who I remember from last year's WPT main event that while electronic devices are not allowed, pen and paper are perfectly fine in any poker game. However, the damage was done and my concentration and mojo had been taken away. I lost the chip lead. Of the final three players, two of us already had won a $1,240 Step Q voucher and the other player has had a lot of WSOP/WPT cashes and said he will never play these high-raked satellites again and will just buy in directly to the $10K event. I eliminated this player, but the other voucher winner had a 2-to-1 chip lead. He was open to a deal either taking or giving cash for the voucher(s) and so was I, but I was too paranoid from that one floor person to take out my pen and paper to figure out our fair tournament equities. My stressed brain came up with an estimate and offered him a deal where I get extra cash plus the $170 replay voucher, and to my pleasant surprise, he quickly accepted. I was already thinking of going all-in with my hand, but instead shook his hand and mucked my all-in hand to officially end the satellite. I verified later using the Independent Chip Model that I got a good +$EV deal.
It was one hour and 45 minutes before we made the deal and ended the satellite early. Had we played it out, it could have easily reached the 8th level of 400/800+100 and took two full hours. Hopefully, the $460 satellite structure will be improved so that it will take as many levels and more time to get to the final (three) winners than this $170 satellite. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to write enough notes to post the hand details from the satelllite.
So not only did I win money from the cash game, but I won extra cash from the satellite, along with my third voucher in three satellites!
OK, so wants to join a carpool to Fallsview Casino next Sunday before noon?
You can see that the rake is a virtually unbeatable 24% from my 
