Re-Buy Tournament Strategies

My anti-swing mindset automatically turned me against re-buy tournaments for a couple reasons. First, I didn’t know what the tourney was going to end up costing me – one or ten buy-ins? Second, the all-in maniacs would either knock me out early and broke. Or gather so many chips I would be bullied the rest of the tournament. Naw, I skipped them.

My negative outlook ignored the positive aspect - the prize pool is much larger - with fewer actual opponents. Can we dare say the word ‘overlay’?

I just needed a different strategy than the one I had for Freezeout tournaments. So here is the one I found thru Todd Arnold at Card Player Magazine;

To counter the fear of what it is going to cost, mentally accept that it may spend up to seven times the original buy-in amount. You may go over - or under - that seven number, depending on your attitude at the time, the table dynamics and the blind level when re-buying, but at least the budget is consider.

Secondly, start with the automatic re-buy and mentally accept that you will buy the add-on.
Third, plan on being ‘active.’ Raise with any playable hand – pre-flop - and note who is ‘gambling’ and who is sitting on the sidelines getting frustrated and waiting for a monster to break you. After the flop, play normal poker.

If you don’t get all your chips in the middle at least three times before the re-buy session ends, you are playing too tight. Chip stacks and table image is much more important than cards. If it is a coin-flip situation or better, gamble at every opportunity.

The goal is to grow your stack exponentially during the re-buy time and not let the blinds or the other player’s chips intimidate you yet.

Now let’s look at the negative aspect [Ed. Note: which I usually tend to do].

Let’s say you lose every coin flip and are sitting there with only the initial buy-in amount and spent the seven entries budgeted. Are you in a world of hurt?

Not really. You still have enough chips in relation to the blinds to not be in serious trouble to where you have to play all-in poker at this point. You can now settle in and play some serious poker because…

Secondly, there is a mountain of chips at your table just waiting to be collected!

Third, you maniac image will get paid off at least once or twice if you start winning some pots. - end

I plan on trying this strategy this winter. – Nik Faldo