The World Series of Poker Main Event in many ways defines the online poker satellite community as it was in 2003 through Chris Moneymaker taking down the Main Event by starting with a satellite tournament online that showed people that it could be done. Although online poker sites have started to offer satellites to just about every live event out there, the WSOP Main Event remains the focal point of the push.

This is clearly evident with the recent events taking place at UB.com, the flagship operation in the CEREUS Network of online poker sites. The online poker site is going to be hosting two tournaments in advance of the 2010 World Series of Poker Main Event. The first of the tournaments will take place on June 6th and will guarantee 25 seats at the 2010 Main Event. The second tournament will take place on June 20th and guarantees twice that number at 50 seats.

Both of the tournaments carry with them a buy-in of $530. Any player that manages to win one of the 75 seats available in the two tournaments will actually end up receiving a total prize package that is worth $12,000. This will come not only with the buy-in of $10,000 that the event requires, but it will also come with money for travel, accommodations and spending within the city of Las Vegas.

Overall, UB is actually adding power to another one of their promotions that relates to the Main Event with these two tournaments. It is the “Show up and get paid” promotion that UB has already put on the table. Any player that qualifies for a package and shows up in Las Vegas will have $5000 added to a central pool of money that UB is creating for their players.

At the end of the tournament, 75% of the prize pool will get divided evenly between all UB qualifiers that show up to play while 25% will get divided evenly between all UB qualifiers that manage to cash in the tournament. In the event that nobody manages to cash, the entire pool will get split amongst the participants so there is definitely an opportunity for players to cash in big even without pulling down at big prize in the WSOP Main Event.