What's a Rebuy?

It has occurred to us at Card Player that perhaps we are assuming too much knowledge on the part of all of our readers. Most of you know the ins and outs of poker and what all the terminology means. But when we received a letter from a faithful reader, we realized that a segment of our audience, while very familiar with poker, has been exposed to the game away from the world of tournaments and sometimes away from cardrooms. Many who have played poker for years have never encountered live tournaments. Many who watch the omnipresent TV broadcasts have not heard all the terms – and the broadcasters don't explain all the terms because they, like us, are perhaps taking too much for granted.



A reader recently wrote:

"As you know, television coverage of poker tournaments and online poker availability has caused an explosion in the number of people playing poker. Thousands of new people are coming to the game every day. And even though the target audience of your magazine is sophisticated players, perhaps you can perform a service for me and thousands like me by publishing an article that covers some of the glossary of tournament play.



"For example, although I've been playing poker for more than 40 years, it was always seven- and five-card stud or draw. I had never heard of Texas hold'em until I saw the World Series of Poker on TV several years ago. After watching the World Poker Tour and reading a few books – as well as your magazine – I thought I'd try my hand at a satellite tournament. At the local casino, I was confronted by a group of terms that are never mentioned on TV. And although I'd seen them in ads in your magazine, there was never a real explanation of what they actually mean.



"I'm talking about such terms as buy-in, entry fee, rebuy, add-on, optional rebuy, freeroll, shootout, spread-limit, bounties, and so on. Each one comes out of the pages or ads of a recent issue of Card Player. Since my Texas hold'em knowledge came entirely from TV tournaments, where such items are never mentioned, I was at a loss when I entered my first satellite and encountered some of them.



"I thought I'd figured out that a buy-in is the cost to enter or buy into a tournament. Then, I ran into a buy-in listed as $250 + $50. What's that? Why not just call it a $300 buy-in?"



Let's clear up the confusion for all readers who may be too embarrassed to ask. Everyone – even our most sophisticated readers – was a cardroom newcomer at some time and also may have been bewildered the first time encountering some of these terms.



Buy-in, when applied to tournaments, is simple. It's what it costs to enter a tournament. So, for example, the main event of the World Series of Poker has a $10,000 buy-in. Casinos of course want to be reimbursed for their efforts, so Harrah's took a small percentage off the top; 6 percent of the buy-in went to management and also was distributed to dealers, floor personnel, and others who worked the event.



Other tournaments tack on an entry fee, which is usually listed as an extra amount, with a plus sign indicating its purpose. For example, you may see a tournament listed as $100 + $25. That means the buy-in is $100 and the entry fee is $25. What may confuse things is that sometimes such a tournament is listed as having a $125 buy-in. In such case, the buy-in may include the entry fee. You have to read the ad or the tournament handout to find out. In any case, the entry fee is the house cut.



The reader continued, "Then I found out this tournament had things such as rebuys and add-ons. As far as I could figure out, a rebuy gave people the opportunity to re-enter the tournament after they'd been knocked out by paying another buy-in – I think. But if that's right, what's an optional rebuy? If you don't have to do it, isn't it optional by definition? As for add-ons, I have no clue. What are they? What's their purpose? Are they different from rebuys?"



A rebuy is just that, an opportunity to buy more chips in a tournament. Tournaments are usually of two sorts, either freezeout or rebuy.



In a freezeout tournament, everyone buys in once and the tournament is played until one person remains and everyone else has busted out. In most such tournaments, multiple places are paid, with first place getting the largest percentage of the prize pool, generally in the 30 percent to 40 percent range. The prize pool consists of all the buy-ins. Second place – that is, the last person to bust out – gets a smaller percentage, third place an even smaller percentage, and so on. In tournaments with fewer players, only a few places are paid. The larger the tournament (number of players), generally the more places paid. The main event of the World Series of Poker, with its 5,619 entrants, paid 560 places.



In a rebuy tournament, players are permitted to buy more chips, generally when they get below a certain amount, and sometimes only when they lose all of their starting chips. Also, rebuys are usually limited to either the first few rounds (say, three) or a certain time period (say, one hour). A round can last anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour, or more. At the end of each round, the stakes escalate.



Rebuy tournaments come in two sorts, limited and unlimited. In a limited rebuy tournament, players are allowed some maximum number of rebuys, such as one, two, or three. An unlimited rebuy tournament means just that. During the rebuy period, players may continue to rebuy whenever they either fall below a certain predetermined amount or go broke. After the rebuy period, players may no longer purchase more chips. Some tournament players say this is when the "real" tournament begins.



All rebuys are optional. No one is forced to rebuy when he goes broke, although most players do. Most players also limit the number of rebuys they're willing to make, although players have been known to rebuy literally scores of times. In fact, some players have found themselves in the position of being able to come out ahead only by placing among the top three finishers. Many tournament participants budget for the buy-in and either two or three rebuys. Thus, they regard a $100 buy-in tournament with $100 rebuys as being in effect a $300 or $400 tournament. If they lose that, they figure things are not going their way and they'll wait for another event.



An add-on is a special rebuy. Generally at the end of the rebuy period, everyone in an add-on tournament is allowed to make one more rebuy. This final rebuy is not dependent on how many chips a player has, and most players take the add-on, although, just like rebuys, it is optional. Often, the add-on provides players more chips than the initial buy-in or any of the rebuys did, so it's usually a good idea to take it. So, when budgeting for a tournament, players generally include the add-on, also.



Spread-limit is just another betting format for poker, and it can apply to any kind of poker, not just hold'em. Limit, pot-limit, and no-limit are the most common betting formats, but spread-limit is also found in some cardrooms and in some tournaments. Spread-limit always involves a range of betting, and is usually expressed as, for example, $1-$5. This means that at any time, players can bet or raise any amount between $1 and $5. You can bet $1, $2, $3, $4, or $5. After you have bet, an opponent can fold, call your bet, or raise by $1, $2, $3, $4, or $5. The only proviso – and this also applies in pot- and no-limit – is that any raise must equal or exceed the preceding bet or raise (unless a player is going all in). So, if you bet $3, an opponent can raise $3, $4, or $5, but not $1 or $2.



Bounties are part of special tournaments called bounty tournaments. In such a tournament, any player gets a special payout, separate from any prize money based on finishing position, for busting either a designated player or any player.



In many bounty tournaments, management personnel or celebrities have bounties on their heads. For example, at Bay 101's yearly Shooting Star tournament, scores of poker and movie celebrities play, one at each table. This year, the bounty on each was $5,000, or half the buy-in to the tournament. Generally, bounties come out of the total prize pool, although in some tournaments, they are an added bonus provided by the casino. An example of the bust-any-player type of bounty tournament might be one with a $50 buy-in in which you get $5 whenever you bust any other player.



Our reader went on: "In your magazine, I see ads for events with a shootout format. What's that?

And what is a freeroll? It sounds like something from the craps table."



A shootout is a special tournament format in which a number of tables of players each play down to one winner, and then the winners of each table compete in the playoff. Oftentimes, all the players who make it to the final table receive prize money, usually ranging from an amount equal to the buy-in for the first one busted out to the main prize, which is usually 30 percent to 40 percent of the total prize pool. Some shootout tournaments are winner-take-all, so the final table also plays down to one player, who wins all the money, but that format is rare.



A freeroll has nothing to do with craps. It's a tournament that has a free buy-in and offers a prize pool that's usually provided by the casino. Of course, as the saying goes, TANSTAAFL ("there ain't no such thing as a free lunch"), and casinos have various ways of making the money they give away in freerolls. In some cases, you have to play in live games a certain number of hours during some specified period of time, perhaps the week or the month preceding the freeroll tournament. In such case, the casino uses a portion of the money it has collected from pots (the rake) to fund the freeroll. In others, you have to have either won or placed in the money in preceding tournaments that the casino has offered. In those, the casino has profited from player participation in earlier events and from the added side-game action that such events bring. Some freeroll tournaments are "free" only in that the initial buy-in is free. These are rebuy tournaments, and players have to put up cash for the rebuys, and such tournaments generally also feature add-ons. Some players do enter for nothing and if they go broke, quit, but they rarely win these tournaments.



Nonetheless, such tournaments still technically come under the heading of freerolls. Some freeroll tournaments are sponsored events, and are truly freerolls. These are usually invitation-only events, such as the $500,000-prize-pool Professional Poker Tour events sponsored by the World Poker Tour.



So, now you know.

Michael Wiesenberg's forthcoming Ultimate Casino Guide will be available this fall.