Qualify Today for Party Poker´s Millions Online Mega-Sat

Players taking the qualification path into Party Poker´s Millions Online Mega-Satellite have a substantial chip advantage over players who buy-in directly.

Last week, Party Poker (review) launched its qualification path for next month´s $5 million guaranteed Millions Online event. As usual, the qualification path starts at “Centroll” level; with “Feeders”, “Quarter-Finals” and “Semi-Finals” leading up to a $530 buy-in Mega-Satellite each Sunday that guarantees twenty-five seats in the Millions Online event.

Also as usual, there is plenty of value available in the $0.01 “Centrolls” and $5.50 “Feeders” which guarantee seats into the higher levels. However, one thing we noticed is that – once you get to the higher levels – players who qualify into them have a definite advantage over players who buy-in directly. In some cases, players who qualify have five times the chip stack of players who buy-in.

Party Poker´s Carry-Forward Format

Party Poker´s “carry-forward” format will be familiar to tournament players at the site. In certain multi-level or phased events, tournaments progress for a fixed period of time, after which surviving players carry-forward their chip stacks into the next level. If a player is dissatisfied with the size of his stack, they can try the lower level again and carry forward what he or she survives with the second time.

The carry-forward format is being applied to the Millions Online satellites and sub-satellites from the $22.00 buy-in hyper-turbo Quarter-Final stage upwards. Plenty of payers are surviving this level with chip stacks well in excess of the 100,000 starting stack players receive for directly buying into the Semi-Finals (for $109.00), and the same scenario is occurring going into the Mega-Satellites.

Has Party Got the Carry-Forward Format Wrong this Time?

In the Mega-Satellites, players start with 500,000 chips, which is equivalent to 100 Big Blinds. However, many players are carrying forward chip stacks well in excess of 1 million chips out of the Semi-Finals and into the Mega-Satellites. In one case, a player has already qualified for next Sunday´s Mega-Satellite with a chip stack of 2.5 million chips. Imagine the advantage they have over a player who buys-in directly for $530.00!

Naturally, the number of chips being carried forward into the Mega-Satellites is representative of the number of chips in play in each Quarter-Final and Semi-Final. However, based on the sub-qualifiers that took place last week, players who qualify into the Mega-Satellites have a massive advantage over those who buy-in directly. Party Poker usually gets it right. On this occasion, the site may have got the format wrong.

Party Adds an Extra Incentive to Qualify Early

In addition to the remarkable advantage players are receiving by taking advantage of the qualification path, Party Poker is entering the first one hundred players to qualify for the target event into a special last longest competition. Each of the first one hundred players to qualify will be given a Gold Chip, and the last player in the Millions Online event to have a Gold Chip wins a $15,000 package to the Millions Final next April in Barcelona.

The target event itself – the $5 million guaranteed Millions Online – starts on Sunday 3rd December. Players can buy-in directly for $5,300 (join the queue) for any of the Day 1s on Sunday (2:00pm EST), Monday (2:00pm EST) or Tuesday (9:00am EST). Players surviving the sixteen levels of action will continue playing Day 2 on Tuesday (2:00pm EST) and, after a further thirteen levels, the remaining players will battle it out for the $1 million guaranteed first prize on Wednesday 6th December.

Somebody has to win it, and the players with the best chance of qualifying for the event appear to be those starting their quests at the $22.00 and $109.00 buy-in levels. Will one of them be you? Only if you are playing at Party Poker.