Further to Joanne's recent post, not only has Full Tilt brought back the Full Tilt Online Poker Series for its second run from November 11 to November 19, but this time around Full Tilt also seems to have broken the mold when it comes to the regular ways to satellite in to these higher buyin events. After missing out on all of the first FTOPS because I was on vacation for the entire week of the tournaments, and being the longtime Full Tilt afficionado that I am, there is basically no way I would have let the entire FTOPS week of tournaments go by without playing in at least one or two of them. Readers of my blog know how annoyed and disappointed I was that Pokerstars decided to start all of its weekday WCOOP events this summer at the ridiculous time of 3pm ET, making it impossible for me and anyone in the U.S. of A. to participate without taking a day off from work, day care or whatever it is we do during the days. So I already knew I'd be picking an event or two in this month's FTOPS and buying my way in to try my hand at eternal glory, the golden avatar and a steaming pile of hot-off-the-presses cash.

Then I found the new FTOPS satellites.

These days, there are tons of ways to satellite in to the FTOPS events. As Joanne mentioned earlier, the buyins for these satellite tournaments can be a real pittance compared to the amounts you can win in the large guaranteed-prize-pool tournaments. Joanne mentioned the $4.40 buyin satellite tournaments, but for the even more frugal among us, Full Tilt has this week started running $3sit-n-go tournaments as super satellites into a qualifier for its $535 buyin FTOPS Main Event on Sunday evening, November 19. These $3 sng's are constantly filling up and running on Full Tilt, so that can be your chance to play for the biggest prize pool of many of our lives for little more than the price of a few couple one half a gallon of gas.

What's more, the satellites that I'm really in to this week are the token (Tier I) buyin sats that run at regular times every night this week and up until the FTOPS tournaments begin. If you peruse the tournament schedule any night on Full Tilt, you will see several $26 buyin multi-table tournament satellites on the slate, where the winner or winners are awarded seats in the corresponding FTOPS event for whatever game the satellite is playing. For example, this week you've been able to play a $26 token buyin tournament starting between 10 and 11pm ET every night for a 6-max no-limit holdem satellite, where for every 10 entrants, one winner is awarded a seat in the 6-max FTOPS tournament on Tuesday, November 14. Another FTOPS satellite I tried out for the first time last night is the $26 token buyin satellite to FTOPS Event #7 (Razz) on Friday, November 17, and I am happy to say I won my FTOPS Razz seat on my first try after a marathon session well into the wee hours this morning. I have a full writeup of that satellite win on my blog right now. So look for me out in the FTOPS satellites over the next couple of weeks heading into the big week of high-guarantee events on Full Tilt, as well as in FTOPS Event #7 as I attempt to avoid full houses and quads enough to take down my biggest Razz poker title ever.

Last quick note -- not sure if anyone else caught this, but when I logged in for my nightly run at the 20k guaranteed tournament on Full Tilt last night, they tried to sneak in a 25k guaranteed prize pool instead of the 20k guarantee that we've all gotten used to. I guess since the inflow of new players thanks to the partypoker pussout , Full Tilt is gaining sufficient confidence in the participation level for its major nightly guarantees that it can kick things up another notch. Just another way of taking care of their players. Full Tilt does it better than any other site, and they always have. $5,000 more guaranteed in the prize pool every night, at no monetary cost whatsoever to the players? I'll take it!