Rebuy!

Rebuy tournaments are becoming more and more popular – especially online, where you don't have to wait for a chip runner to stroll over to your table and offer you additional chips. It also helps that in online tournaments, the rebuys go directly into the prize pool, unlike some brick-and-mortar casino tournaments, where the house withholds juice from every rebuy dollar. Many players, even some who have a good framework for analyzing regular tournaments, don't really know what they're up against when they try to tackle the strategic decisions unique to a rebuy event. I'd like to look at a couple of those decisions, and give you some tools for making them.



Most rebuy tournaments allow players to rebuy before the very first hand is even dealt. The usual rule is that if you have a chip count equal to or less than your starting stack, you're eligible to rebuy. Obviously, your chip count is your starting stack when you first sit down, so every player can rebuy at that point. Should you? The answer is almost always yes, but let's think through the problem logically and see how we arrive at that answer.



Before you even begin to answer the question of whether to rebuy, you must first know exactly what a rebuy gets you. In typical rebuy tournaments, a rebuy gives you an amount of chips equal to your starting stack, for almost the same cost as your starting stack. For example, in an $11 rebuy tournament online (in which $10 from your buy-in goes to the prize pool and $1 goes to the site) that gives you 1,500 in starting chips, a $10 rebuy will buy you another 1,500 in chips. In this case, the question "Should I rebuy?" is almost exactly the same as the question, "Should I have bought into this event?" Early in a tournament, doubling your stack size essentially doubles your value (a point I've made in several other columns). Therefore, if the first 1,500 in chips was worth $11 to you, the next 1,500 in chips is definitely worth at least $10 to you. A situation could arise, however, where you think you shouldn't have bought into the tournament in the first place. Let's say you're a low-limit player who has just won a satellite into a $1,000 event at the World Series of Poker. You're very excited, and want to play the event just for the experience. You sit down at the table, the dealer deals the first hand – and that's when you realize that you're in a rebuy event. You probably wouldn't have bought into a $1,000 tournament on your own, rebuy or not, because it's above your skill and bankroll level, and now you're stuck playing a $1,000 rebuy event. You don't have to throw good money after bad. Just as you wouldn't have paid $1,000 out of your pocket for your starting stack, you shouldn't pay $1,000 to rebuy, either.



Occasionally, tournaments will offer discount rebuys. For example, a buy-in of $100 might get you 1,000 in chips, but then a rebuy of $100 will get you another 2,000. You're getting your next round of chips at half-price. Every player in the tournament, no matter how skilled, should exercise a rebuy option like this one. There is just way too much value in buying chips at that reduced rate. Add-ons – options to buy more chips for your stack after the rebuy period ends, regardless of your chip count – are often available at a discount. It is, therefore, almost always correct to get the add-on.



Another question that rebuy players often have is whether to rebuy once they've gone broke. Again, this is almost exactly the same decision as whether to buy into the tournament in the first place. Many players, after rebuying several times and going broke yet again, make the mistake of saying something like, "I've already spent $1,000 in this tournament; I'm not spending another $200." That $1,000 is gone. You're not getting it back. The only question is whether to spend $200 on a new chip stack. If it was worth it to spend $200 at the start of the event … well, you get the point. Unless you think that you're at an unusually tough table, or that you're about to go on tilt from having to rebuy so many times, you should always exercise your option to rebuy if you thought buying into the tournament was a good investment in the first place. I once spent $1,400 in a rebuy supersatellite, and was annoyed that I had too much in chips at the end of the rebuy period to spend another $200. I wound up winning a $10,000 seat in that event.



Now that you have an idea of how to evaluate whether to rebuy at any point, let's look briefly at how the rebuy period should change your strategy. Many big-name tournament players choose to blindly shove in their stacks over and over again during the rebuy period, hoping to amass enough chips to give them an excellent chance of reaching the final table and eventually winning the event. This is why you might have heard tales of certain guys spending $28,000 or more in a $1,000 rebuy event at the WSOP. Unless you have a major endorsement deal waiting for you at the final table, this strategy is a horrible idea. Sure, you'll increase your chances of building a nice stack, but you'll be paying a premium for those chips in real dollars (the opposite of getting rebuy chips at a discount). It's true that to profit in tournaments, you have to win your fair share of them, but in the end, expected value is still paramount. You profit in tournaments by winning your fair share of them, not by buying them. I've won a few rebuy tournaments, won a bunch of money in others, and won a few seats in rebuy supersatellites, and I've never used a wild and crazy strategy during the rebuy period. Your best strategy is always to look for good spots and take advantage of them – simple as that. That said, if a guy starts moving in all the time, don't hesitate to call for all of your chips with A-10, even if that's not a play you're used to making. Also, if making a marginal call allows you to rebuy if you end up losing, you should lean toward getting your chips in, knowing that for a skilled player such as yourself, taking a rebuy is a positive expected value play. Otherwise, however, there isn't much rebuy specialization needed. Just play your usual strong game during the rebuy period.



To sum up, if you're a favorite to the field, you should take advantage of most every rebuy and add-on opportunity. You shouldn't, however, treat the rebuy period as an excuse to blow through chips. You should treat it as you would treat any other part of the event – as a chance to increase your expected value.



Matt Matros is the author of The Making of a Poker Player, which is available online at www.CardPlayer.com. He is also a featured coach for stoxpoker.com, and recently finished in second place out of 2,254 players in an online rebuy event.