The Value in Re-buy Tournaments

A number of poker players shy away from re-buy and add-on tournaments because of the maniacal early stages known as “storming” – where loose aggressive players overbet with practically any hand to gain a chip advantage, knowing that they can re-buy their way back into the tournament should their gamble fail. Inasmuch as sitting quietly until a monster hand falls in your lap is not going to do much for your competitive contribution to the game, there are other ways of approaching a re-buy and add-on tournament which represent excellent value.

First of all, one of the most important things to realise is that re-buy and add-on poker tournaments generally generate at least three times the prize fund of a regular freeze-out tournament with the same number of players. You can confirm that by going through the lobby of your favourite online poker site and studying the lists of completed games. It is not usual that you will be the beneficiary of a loose aggressive player´s betting actions if you are a regular TAG, so you should expect that you are going to have to re-buy at least once during the early stages of the tournament or, if you are fortuitous early on, pay for an add-on during the first break. Consequently find a re-buy and add-on tournament with a buy-in of a third of what you would normally pay for a freeze-out game.

From herein, there are three possible ways you can play the tournament

• As an initial maniac – trying to double up within the first couple of hands and settling down thereafter.

• As the aforementioned over-tight player – waiting for a premium hand, hoping that when you get it, the maniacs still want to play.

• With an immediate re-buy – doubling your stack immediately and loosening up against the table bullies.

None of these are right or wrong, and you have to remember that thirty minutes or so into the tournament, the play will settle down and give you an opportunity to evaluate your position and how you need to compete up until the add-on period and once the freeze-out game takes over.

Where the value lies in re-buy tournaments is that you may have paid once, twice or three times the buy-in (including the add-on) to be still competitive in a tournament that possibly half the original entrants will have given up on by the first break, and which offers you a chance of cashing more money than you would have in your regular tournament.

Obviously, if things have gone very badly, you will have given up and walked away from the game, but – importantly – with no more loss than if you had busted out of a freeze-out game. And you have to acknowledge that if you had three bites of the apple trying to cash in a tournament, and still ended up losing, it was never going to be!

Take a look at re-buy and add-on tournaments if they do not appear in the portfolio of games you usually participate in. The major differences in the way in which they are played, are that they are not so dour during the early stages and everybody still involved after the first break is fairly well stacked. Although that may ultimately lead to a much longer end game, the rewards of cashing in a re-buy and add-on tournament represent excellent value compared to a regular freeze-out multi table poker tournament.

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