On My Way to the PCA

“Super Satellite
Buy-In: $665.00/$35.00 USD
585 players
Total Prize Pool: $389025.00 USD
Target Tournament #201001051 Buy-In: $14130.00 USD
25 tickets to the target tournament

Tournament started 2009/11/01 18:00:00 ET

Dear foucault82,

Congratulations – You have won a package for the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) 2010 Main Event. The PCA is at the Atlantis Resort and Casino on Paradise Island in the Bahamas! You’ll be checking in at the Atlantis on Monday, January 4, 2010, and checking out on Tuesday, January 12. Your hotel reservation covers you and one guest.”

I go back and forth on whether it’s even worth playing the satellites for these big buy-in international tournaments. By the time you pay travel expenses, currency exchange vig, etc., the tournaments aren’t generally such a hot investment. Not to mention the variance that comes with playing these things on my own money.

I’m usually able to convince myself that the satellites themselves are usually a uniquely good value. They tend to be some of the higher buy-in events offered on Stars, and I think my edge is particularly large in the satellite format because so many people tend to play so badly on the bubble.

At least, they usually do. The bubble in this one was actually quite tough. There were more than a few players left whom I knew to be strong, and even a lot of the names I didn’t recognize seemed to be playing at a pretty high level. Naturally there were a few weaker players, but all in all it was about the highest quality of play I’ve seen on a satellite bubble.

Well, at least I get a vacation in the Caribbean out of it ;-).