Poker Tournament Rebuys And Add Ons

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Rebuys are available to players whose chip count is lower or equal to the amount specified in the tournament info “Maximum chips for rebuy”. Add-ons are available during the latter stages of a tournament and can be offered to all players wanting to raise their chip count. Therefore, if you want to host a large tournament (Ex. A charity poker tournament), you’ll be better off with a smaller buy-in. The amount you and other poker players at the game are willing to lose. If you are offering dedicated dealers at every table, free food, or for your own profit, you can add a 10% fee to the buy-in amount.

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Click here for Part 1 of this series.
In the long-ago, olden days of the last century, almost all tournaments were freezeouts, meaning you could enter one time only. If you lost all your chips, you were done. There were also a handful of rebuy tournaments, usually lower buy-in events that happened weekly at your local poker room. That way, the players with smaller bankrolls could enter once and take a shot, and those with bigger bankrolls could splash around and rebuy and add-on as much as possible to increase their odds of building a stack and going deep.

In today’s environment, most live tournaments offer re-entry, and many online tournaments offer rebuys and add-ons.
Despite the almost ubiquitous nature of these formats, there are many players who very much dislike them. They feel the ability to re-enter gives an advantage to the players with deep pockets who can afford to re-enter frequently. Which means they think those without deep pockets are at a disadvantage.
Some players also dislike how the ability to re-enter causes some of their opponents to play very loose and aggressive during the re-entry period. And it is true, there are many players who do this, who take huge, almost suicidal, risks during the re-entry period. They often have the goal of getting lucky and building a giant stack, or busting out to re-enter and try again.
As for the first concern, I must disagree. It has often been said that poker is just one long game. This is more obvious in a cash game setting. If I visit my local poker room several days per week and always play $1-$2 no-limit holdem, the result of each individual session isn’t of much importance. What matters is how well I do in the aggregate, that is, in the long run.
However, much the same can be said about tournaments. Let’s say your poker room runs a tournament every Tuesday night that permits re-entry. Every week it is the same buy-in, same structure, and approximately the same field.

When you think about it, what does it matter if you re-enter the tournament tonight, or come back next Tuesday to play then? How is a player at a disadvantage because they don’t have the bankroll to re-enter? The difference between a player who never re-enters, and another who averages one re-entry per week is not that the player who re-enters has any monetary advantage. It just means that one of them will play 40-50 entries per year, and the other 80-100 entries.

If they have the same skill level, they will achieve the same return on investment. But the player who re-enters has no advantage over the player who does not, or cannot, re-enter. Yes, the player who re-enters is more likely to make it to the money tonight, and to win the tournament tonight. They are, in this example, about twice as likely to do so. But they are also spending about twice as much money for that benefit. In the end, if these two players have the same skill level, they will each win, or lose, about the same amount per dollar invested in entries.
With respect to the second concern, I also must disagree. Yes, in my experience, there is a lot more loose, aggressive play during the re-entry period. I see this all the time. Sometimes, there are players who are capable of playing with great skill, but instead choose to gamble like crazy during the re-entry period. If that is what some people are complaining about, I say to them, “Are you crazy, too?” If your opponent is capable of playing well, but is instead playing poorly, why would you want to stop them?

I say, let them make their foolish plays. While it adds a lot of variance to the game, it also adds a lot of profit to my bottom line, and to the bottom line of everyone else in the field.
The thing is, making a negative expected value (-EV) decision in a hand of poker does not become positive expected value (+EV) just because you can re-enter if you bust. If you are getting the same number of chips per dollar for the re-entry, then choosing to re-enter is no different than coming back next week to enter this tournament afresh.
As far as your personal long-term EV is concerned, choosing to re-enter just saves you time, and lets you get your bankroll back into action sooner. Just like it is your right to play each hand as you see fit, it is their right to do the same, both during and after the re-entry period. Let your opponents, if they choose to do so, play wild-and-crazy. Accept that this will increase your variance, but stick to making the smartest decisions you can. Re-enter, or not, as you wish, when that becomes an option.
If you still just believe that rebuy and re-entry tournaments are a bad idea, there is one critical thing you can do. Vote with your feet, don’t play them, and let the poker room know why you’re avoiding these events. If enough people agree with you, I promise you the poker room will listen.
Just like every other part of the game, have fun, and Play Smart! ♠

Greg Raymer is the 2004 World Series of Poker main event champion, winner of numerous major titles, and has more than $7 million in earnings. He recently authored FossilMan’s Winning Tournament Strategies, available from D&B Publishing, Amazon, and other retailers. He is sponsored by Blue Shark Optics, YouStake, and ShareMyPair. To contact Greg please tweet @FossilMan or visit his website.

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Poker

Buy-In

Buy-in is the dues (usually cash) every player pays to play at a poker tournament . These dues are put in a prize pool to pay the tournament winner(s).

Typical amount of buy in range from $5/player (small house games) to $10,000/player (world series of poker main event). Sometimes the buy-in is in the form of $50+$5. This means that every player will have to pay $55 to get in the game. However only $50 of it goes toward the prize pool and $5 goes to the “house”. The $5 fee is usually to pay for the host’s costs and profit.

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If you are hosting a poker tournament you need to specify the amount of the buy in before the game. Use the following points to choose the best buy-in amount:

  • How large (number of players) you want your tournament to be. A larger buy-in translates into fewer players. Therefore, if you want to host a large tournament (Ex. a charity poker tournament), you’ll be better off with a smaller buy-in.
  • The amount you and other poker players at the game are willing to lose.
  • If you are offering dedicated dealers at every table, free food, or for your own profit, you can add a 10% fee to the buy-in amount.

Advice on Buy-In:

Following are some Buy-In advice and notes to help you run a smooth and organized poker tournament:

  • If you are playing for a large amount, it’s better to set longer blind periods such as half an hour. When players pay a considerable amount of money, they want to at least stay in the game for a while. Long blind period stretches the length of the game.
  • Players play tighter when the buy-in amount is large. So if you are hosting an expensive tournament with 3 tables or so expect a long tournament (at least 5 or 6 hours).
  • As a rule of thumb take cash only for the buy-in money. There will always be players that “forgot” to bring cash with them or want to play on a loan. Keep in mind that YOU (the tournament host) are responsible to pay the winner at the end. So make everyone pay up front. You can simply tell players in question that you “don’t have enough cash at home to cover them”.
  • Write down the name of all players and mark their names “Paid” once you take the buy-in money from them

Rebuys

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Imagine you’re hosting a tournament with 15 players and your friend busts out early. He has to sit around and watch everyone play until a new game has started. This is where rebuys come in. The rebuy allows the player who just lost all of his chips to buy back in the tournament.

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Imagine you’re hosting a tournament with 15 players and your friend busts out early. He has to sit around and watch everyone play until a new game has started. This is where rebuys come in. The rebuy allows the player who just lost all of his chips to buy back in the tournament.

  • The rebuy amount should be the same amount as the original buy-in amount.
  • Players who rebuy should get the same amount of chips as they received in the beginning of the game.

Advice on Rebuys

A rebuy tournament has it’s own rules and constraints. Following are the most important ones:

  • The number of times that players can rebuy should be set before the game starts. It can be 1, 2, 3 or unlimited.
  • Rebuys are only allowed in a limited amount of time in the beginning of the tournament. This time is usually set by the number of times that the tournament blind has increased. For example 2 rebuys per player can be allowed during the first 3 blinds.
  • Rebuys can be allowed when a player loses all of his chips or the his chip count goes under a certain level. For example in a tournament where players start with 2500 in chips, rebuys can be allowed when a player’s chip count goes under $500. This rules has to be set prior to starting the tournament.
      • Players can only add enough chips to make their stack the original amount. In the above example if a player loses his chips down to 400, he can do a rebuy, but only receive 2100 in chips from the tournament manager.
      • If the player wants to rebuy when he still has chips (less than 500 in the above example) he will still have to pay the full amount for rebuy.
  • If you do allow rebuys in your poker tournament, make sure you write down the name of players who rebuy with the number of time they have re-bought.

Once you decide to have rebuys at your tournament, you need to decide how many re-buys you want to allow per player. There are two different ways that you can handle this:

Add
  • Limited rebuy: A limited rebuy is when each player can rebuy only certain number of times. After rebuying that many times, he/she is out of tournament.
  • Unlimited rebuy: In an unlimited rebuy tournament, players can rebuy (buy back) as many times as they want, until the rebuy period is over. A good tournament structure would be to allow unlimited re-buys during the first two/three blinds. Unlimited rebuy also creates larger prize pools.

A poker tournament that does not allow rebuys is called a freezout tournament.

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Tournament

Effects of rebuy on the game:

  • Once rebuys are allowed in a tournament players know that they can buy back if they bust out so the game tends to be looser than normal. This varies by the amount of buy-in and rebuy, but in general you are going to have a looser game with rebuys than without rebuy.
  • Rebuys tend to create large prize pools. Let’s say if you have a $10 buy in with unlimited re buys for the first hour with 16 players. Without the rebuy you will have $160 in the prize pool. With the rebuy your prize pool usually doubles or triples. The reason for that is $10 is not much and once people lose they want to get back in the game so they spent another $10 and mostly don’t keep track of how many times they’ve bought in.
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Basic Strategy Tip

If you are playing at an unlimited rebuy tournament, try to double and triple up fast, but don’t play too loose, and keep in mind if you are doing a rebuy for the fourth or fifth time, you probably should call it the night. After your fourth or fifth rebuy, other players stacks are going to be much larger than the original stack (which is what you would get if you rebuy). This makes it every hard (if not impossible) for you to catch up and be able to make plays if you are re-buying late in the tournament.