Re: Party's Steps tourneys -- rake analysis

> This is different from any other qualifier how?

It's different from a lot of the satellites on PokerStars, because Stars 
understands the concept of reducing the rake on satellites.  Just one 
example:  Stars has $11+rebuys turbo sats for the Sunday main event.  The 
turbo aspect increases the luck factor, but if you do the typical one
rebuy, 
one add-on, the sat is nominally $30+$1.  Taking into account the main
event 
rake ($200+$15), the effective buy-in for the sat is $28+$3.  That's a 
slightly better deal than $25+$30.

> Foxwoods' ACT I/II/III comes to
> mind as virtually the same thing.

I don't know the structure for Act I/II/III, so I don't know how good or
bad 
a deal it is.  I'm guessing they don't funnel off some of the Act II prize

pool to put people back into Act I, though.

But yeah, in principle, any multi-tiered satellite structure with heavy 
rakes at each stage is going to be a pretty bad gambling proposition at
the 
lower levels.  The Step tourneys are just a really egregious example of 
that.