Doing Well In Re-buy Tournaments

Things you will learn:

How to approach a re-buy tournament

When to re-buy and when to call it a day

Playing like a maniac and going all in regularly means certain death in normal poker. Not so with re-buys. Buying back in when your stack is low can keep you out of the poker cemetery.

Most people are familiar with the concept of poker tournaments by now, thanks to online poker and TV. Most of these are freezeouts, but there's also a completely different type of possibility on offer in most places - the re-buy tournament.

In these events, there's a designated 're-buy period' during which you can buy more chips if you go broke. Depending on the specific rules, you can do this as many times as you want when you have chips but fall below a certain level (or even straight away). Sometimes you can also take an 'add-on' at the end of the re-buy period, whereby you can buy even more chips irrespective of how many you have accumulated.

Because of this, strategy during this part of a tournament is radically different to the freezeout stage of the event - that is, when the re-buy period is over - or a straight freezeout. In short, you need to have a few re-buys in your pocket, a good gambling attitude and the ability to see who is playing what game during this stage, as well as how their game alters afterwards.

So re-buy events sound right up your street? Great, but hang on a second, as there are a few things you need to take into consideration before you even play a hand if you want to make them profitable.

First, you need to check the rules and structures to ensure your pockets are deep enough and to determine your overall strategy. For example, in a $10 online re-buy event, you might need to budget around $50. With huge fields online, it's normally a good idea to buy more chips whenever you're given the opportunity so you can build a stack and have an advantage over players who don't have one.

You may also go broke at some stage and need to re-buy this 'double stack', although doing so more than once probably isn't advisable. With two double-buy-ins of $20 and an add-on of $10, $50 is a good ballpark figure to keep in mind. However, if only single buy-ins are allowed, $30 would be pretty reasonable.

This strategy usually holds true, but you also need to check on how many chips you get at which stages for your money. For example, buy-ins and re-buys are usually the same amount of chips, but some events might give more for the add-on as an extra incentive to take it.

This can represent a significant difference.

• For example, if a game offers double buy-ins where you get 1,500 chips for $10 (so 3,000 for $20 to start with) and an add-on of 2,000 chips for $10, you should probably just play as normal and gamble it up
• Conversely, if you're only allowed single buy-ins of 1,000 chips for $10, but an add-on where you get 2,000 chips for another $10, it's probably more correct to play extremely tight and ensure you don't need to take unnecessary rebuys where you only get the 1,000 chips
• For the purposes of this article, though, we'll assume the later isn't the case, as all you need to do there is fold unless you find a monster or flop a big hand cheaply

Unlike in a freezeout, where people usually play very tight in the early levels while trying to figure each other out, it's common to see several people go all-in on the first hand of a small buy-in rebuy event and turn over hands such as 4-4, K-7 and A-2! This is great news if you're on their table, as you've found some real gamblers and, if you play it right, you could be sitting on a mountain of chips by the end of the re-buy period for only a small outlay.

Just ask yourself this: if one table has 40 re-buys on it and another has only 10, then which table is more likely to produce the eventual winner? For this reason, you need to do as much as possible to encourage the gambling spirit while keeping things as cheap as possible for yourself. This might mean talking it up with the maniacs and making a few inexpensive raises or bluffs (which, of course, you can show to loosen everyone up), going all in a few times, or just generally giving the impression that you're there to gamble.

Of course, this isn't exactly the case, as there's no point ending up with 20,000 in chips if that's what they would have cost you if you were able to buy them. Rather, you want to create the illusion of being a maniac. This is particularly true in re-buy events, as people are far less likely to gamble with a rock.

This is easy enough to do, as since most re-buy events are pot limit or no Limit. The sizes of bets tend to get exponentially bigger through the betting rounds and you can make a lot of 'advertising' raises and bluffs before the flop or on it without denting your stack. However, because of them, people will frequently mis-categorise you and pay you off when you have a hand and make big bets on the turn and river, or go all-in before the flop with a big hand.

If there's one certainty about this approach it's that the volatility of your results in the re-buy period can go through the roof as you're gambling so much and often playing far more hands than you would normally. As such, as things progress, you're probably either going to end up accumulating a big stack or going broke. When this happens you need to consider whether it's time to change strategy.

For example, if you sit down and more than double your starting chips in the first half of the re-buy period, you might want to tighten up a bit as your plan has been successful and you don't really want to get low again. Besides, if you do make this decision, the chances are the other players won't notice for a while anyway. If you do pick up some big hands, you're just as likely to get paid with them.

However, if you go broke and decide to take a re-buy, you need to start thinking about how much you're prepared to spend, or if you want to continue at all. For example, if this happens very early in the game and the table is a good one, you might be happy to go over budget in order to keep to the gambling style. On the other hand, if you're at a poor or tough table or the rebuy period is nearly over, you might just decide to tighten up and wait for the freezeout stage, or even give up and leave if you go broke again - after all, if others have a massive stack already, then you're going to be at a huge disadvantage anyway.

The freezeout stages of a rebuy event throw up a few special circumstances. Most importantly, you need to observe how people's styles change compared with how they played during the rebuy period - for example, have they noticed at all that a change of strategy is needed, have they taken add-ons or extra rebuys if these were available to them, and how many chips do they now have compared with the blinds and average stacks (both at your table and overall)? Consider these points as you enter the freezeout stage of the tournament (and mentally compare them to other events you've played) and you'll be well on the way to the final table.