PP Step Tournaments

Does anyone else play in these? I'm convinced that they are a good return on your money, but take some time. In large field MTT I have trouble getting enough chips to maintain through bubble play, so the STEP tournaments offer $1000+ places for $12 entry. I also like how they are set up, you aren't just out for the middle steps, if you play solid cards I think they are long term profitable. This doesn't come with any first hand knowledge though.

I played in a STEP 1 today and moved on to STEP 2 to finish in 5th, but that means I just have to play a STEP 2 again, not a bad gig. At step 5, first place pays $9000. The players in them seem to be much better, although there is still a lot of dead money, it's not as absurd as what you normally see.

In the STEP 1 tournament when we combined one of the players had over 7000 TC. I had 1200 or so, and was about middle of the field. We whittled it down to 7 players (4 move on) and proceeded to bust the chip leader. He could have mucked every hand from the table combination and still had a large lead on everyone else. Since there is not a difference between first and fourth, he made a major mistake in my mind.

STEP 2 had a rough beginning, I got short stacked early on when my boat lost to a straight flush. I didn't quite understand what was happening for a second when the chips were sliding to the other guy, then I finally saw it. Luckily he was short stacked at the time, otherwise I would have busted out in 18th or so.