Poker News

Mike Eikenberry

Since satellites for tournament play were first started, thousands of players have won their way into tournaments. Along the way some strange things have happened.

Less than an hour remained before the start of the main seven-card studevent in the World Series of Poker. I got into the last one-table satellite. As play started, one player who had paid for the satellite was missing. Over the next 45 minutes I eliminated everyone except the missing player (who had never returned, had been anted off, but still had some chips). The dealer said he would have to continue dealing until the missing player was out of chips. We continued over the next few minutes–just the dealer, an empty seat, and me. Numerous strange looks came from the players arriving for the main event. Finally, the missing player’s last chips went into the pot. However, he got 3 jacks dealt to him in his four up cards. The dealer said “he” won the hand since I could not beat the 3 jacks. There was no “he;” there was no player! Amazingly, the satellite director was uncertain and wanted to get a ruling from the tournament director. Finally, I got a ruling that I had won the satellite, as they were about to start the main event. However, I took it as a bad omen that I had struggled for 30-40 minutes to beat an “empty seat” and decided to use the entry another day.

In the satellite area one morning Lou was running from one table to another. He mistakenly thought he had lost a one-table satellite and had quickly bought the last seat in another satellite. However, as the new satellite was starting, Lou was called back to the first satellite where he still had one chip left. He quickly threw the chip into the pot and ran back to play his hand in the new satellite. He won the pot at the first table and now was alive in both satellites. He continued running back and forth to play both satellites. Amazingly, he won them both.

Jerry arrived from the airport and headed straight for the one-table satellites. The game was seven-card stud eight or better. I got to the satellite room to watch with only five players remaining in the satellite. I was standing where Jerry could show me his hole cards. He was playing and doing well. He folded a couple of pretty good low hands I would have played. However, he won a big pot with a full house and two more players were eliminated. Jerry turned and whispered to me that his opponents weren’t playing too good and he felt like he was going to win easily. Soon thereafter, Jerry turned over two pair while his opponent had made a good low to win half of the pot. As the dealer gave the other player his half the pot, Jerry said, “hold it, what are you doing? I won that pot.” The dealer explained that the other player made a low. Jerry firmly explained that the game was high only. Suddenly, I realized why Jerry was throwing away low starting hands and thought his opponents were so bad. He had been playing high only stud, not hi-low split. Amazingly, there had been no split pots in the game until this point. Jerry sat in chagrined amazement. When one of his opponents went bust the next hand, I suggested to Jerry that he offer an even split of the satellite winnings to his one remaining opponent. They each had the same amount of chips. As Jerry made the offer, he was still in shock and his opponent was hesitating. his opponent finally agreed when I said, “Jerry got half the chips while playing the wrong game. Do you really want to mess with him when he is playing the right game?”

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