New Batter Hits a Home Run With Championship Satellite Strategy
By Rod Allison

Brad Daugherty, 1991 world champion of poker, has joined Tom McEvoy and T.J. Cloutier to strengthen the lineup of Cardsmith Publishing's roster, which the publisher has dubbed "poker's leading team of winning authors." With prolific co-author McEvoy, Daugherty has scored a winner in his first at-bat, Championship Satellite Strategy, subtitled "How to Turn a Toothpick into a Lumberyard."

Satellites have fueled the wildfire growth of major and minor tournaments alike. In the 2003 World Series of Poker's record-breaking field of 839 players, more than half won their seats via a satellite, including Champion Chris Moneymaker, the first online satellite winner to win the Series. But until the publication last month of Championship Satellite Strategy, players could find only scant information on how to win satellites, and played what Daugherty calls the "SOP strategy – by the seat of your pants." Daugherty and McEvoy have filled that instructional void with a fully fleshed-out book that gives its readers the skinny on how to win one-table limit hold'em and no-limit hold'em satellites, supersatellites, and online satellites.

Beginning with "10 Ways to Win a Seat for the WSOP," the book takes the reader through nine more chapters that include the mechanics of satellites, limit hold'em and no-limit hold'em one-table satellites, and no-limit hold'em supersatellites. Rounding out the 10 chapters is "Online Satellites: How to Play for Profit," which explains how to play the unique multitable format of the online limit and no-limit hold'em satellites, how to tell when you're in trouble, and how to get yourself out of it.

The no-limit hold'em chapters are especially strong. Recognizing that many players are attracted to no-limit hold'em because it is the reigning kingpin of tournament games, the authors wisely present a chapter titled "No-Limit Hold'em Winning Principles" before guiding players through the next three sections on no-limit satellite play. Two sections on how to win no-limit one-table satellites and supersatellites give round-by-round (and almost chip-by-chip) instruction. The finale is an entertaining and educational foray into play-by-play at the final table of a supersatellite titled "Playing the Final Table with Brad."

Daugherty shines in this chapter, voicing his thoughts while playing 23 hands at a ninehanded supersatellite final table to win a seat in The Big One. "Player 7 limps in for $1,200. To my surprise, Player 5 raises $4,000 from the big blind. Answering the challenge, Player 7 moves all in. Player 5 again announces, 'I have to go!' and calls the raise. 'What could Player 7 have?' I ask myself. My intuition about his suspicious limp proves correct when he shows pocket aces (and wins the pot). Player 5, our chip leader throughout most of the supersatellite, now has only $1,400 left. For many years I've been hearing players say, 'I have to go.' But you never really have to go, I guess, until someone puts a gun to your head." The language is simple and the lesson is clear, as they are throughout the book.

Championship Satellite Strategy is an invaluable instructional tool for players who want to emulate Moneymaker's rags-to-riches story. "If you want to turn a toothpick into a lumberyard like I did in 2003, read this book. McEvoy and Daugherty show you how to win satellites online and on-land in language that everybody can easily understand," the champ wrote in his endorsement. I couldn't agree more. A valuable glossary of satellite terminology comes at the end of this 208-page book, reasonably priced at $24.95.

Here's one final recommendation: Earlier this year, Cardsmith Publishing came out with The Championship Table, a dandy book that chronicles the WSOP, its colorful history, the 28 unique world champions of poker, how they won it, how the runners-up lost it, the final hand they played (with McEvoy's blow-by-blow), their photos, interviews, quotes, plus prize money, number of entrants, and ground-breaking "firsts." Cardsmith publisher and Card Player columnist Dana Smith teamed with researcher Ralph Wheeler and commentator McEvoy to write this entertaining and educational excursion into high-stakes poker and its personalities, which has been picked up by Cardoza Publishing (in association with Simon & Schuster) and will hit the major book markets in the spring.

Spicing its already tasty pages are vintage photographs from the 1975-76 Series, featuring seldom-seen photos of legends Sailor Roberts, Bob Hooks, Jesse Alto, and Crandall Addington.

Wheeler's research turned up colorful quotes, like this one from Jesse May in describing the 2001 WSOP: "Carlos Mortensen had the remaining players lining up to get off that table, he had them bursting into tears in relief when they finally got busted out, they were so happy to get out from the glare." And Virgie Moss' comment about her husband, Johnny: "I won't let Johnny play poker at all in the house. They just get so nasty when they're playin', droppin' cigarette butts on the rugs and everything."

When you pick up Championship Satellite Strategy, I recommend that you add The Championship Table to your shopping cart. With 78 photos and an index of poker personalities from Abdo to Zolotow, this 184-page book is a bargain at $19.95.