I go back and forth in my mind all the time as to whether I hate re-buy tournaments or whether I love re-buy tournaments. If you spend much time playing online poker, you know that re-buy's are a staple of the internet NL Hold'em realm. Full Tilt has tons of them happening all the time and PokerStars does the same thing. I think re-buys are appealing to novice players because they offer the second chance. You don't have to be perfect, you can rebuy until you get lucky! This is also what makes them appealing/nauseating to those of us you know what we are doing!
First thing you need to do is set a budget. By this I mean, how many times are you going to re-buy. I don't believe that playing a re-buy and just giving it one shot is a good strategy, nor do I think that having no limit to your re-buys is a good idea either. I prefer to be somewhere in the middle. You don't give yourself enough of a chance in these tournaments if you don't re-buy at all, but you cannot re-buy so many times that you can't make any money in the tournament either. Obviously you have to take your bankroll into account, but I think a good rule of thumb is not to spend more money re-buying than you would get paid by making the money.
So, keep it simple, look at what you will win if you make the money and set that as your limit as far as re-buys go. Then it doesn't really matter what dollar level you are playing at, you can know when to quit. So, if you are playing a $1 tournament and the minimum you can get paid is $5 if you make the money, re-buy 4 times. Same thing if you are playing a $100 rebuy and the minimum payout is $500. You can re-buy 4 times.
The reason these tournaments can be frustrating is that the wack-jobs that will go all-in with pretty much anything (simply because they can re-buy) are the ones that will build your stack when you come up against them with a big hand. Conversely, they are also the ones that will drive you nuts and suck-out some unbelievable crap and crack your pocket Aces when their 3-2 suited makes a flush!
The trick is to identify these players fast at every table you at are at, which is pretty easy since they will be the idiots playing every hand, and then decide what hands you will play against them. I like to pressure them pre-flop if I can. These players typically like to limp and they hate it if you make big pre-flop raises or re-raises against them. If you do this with a high pocket pair, they will many times go all-in pre-flop with some real crap hands that will give you a huge advantage and the opportunity to double up. Just don't get too irate when they luck out. It does happen, just re-buy and wait for the next opportunity to punish the donkeys.
Re-buys can be fun and they can be frustrating, just set some limits and then play your game. Do not loosen your play to match the morons who happen to be sitting next to you. Wait for chances to pop them for all their chips, and let it roll off your back the 10% of the time that they luck out.
First thing you need to do is set a budget. By this I mean, how many times are you going to re-buy. I don't believe that playing a re-buy and just giving it one shot is a good strategy, nor do I think that having no limit to your re-buys is a good idea either. I prefer to be somewhere in the middle. You don't give yourself enough of a chance in these tournaments if you don't re-buy at all, but you cannot re-buy so many times that you can't make any money in the tournament either. Obviously you have to take your bankroll into account, but I think a good rule of thumb is not to spend more money re-buying than you would get paid by making the money.
So, keep it simple, look at what you will win if you make the money and set that as your limit as far as re-buys go. Then it doesn't really matter what dollar level you are playing at, you can know when to quit. So, if you are playing a $1 tournament and the minimum you can get paid is $5 if you make the money, re-buy 4 times. Same thing if you are playing a $100 rebuy and the minimum payout is $500. You can re-buy 4 times.
The reason these tournaments can be frustrating is that the wack-jobs that will go all-in with pretty much anything (simply because they can re-buy) are the ones that will build your stack when you come up against them with a big hand. Conversely, they are also the ones that will drive you nuts and suck-out some unbelievable crap and crack your pocket Aces when their 3-2 suited makes a flush!
The trick is to identify these players fast at every table you at are at, which is pretty easy since they will be the idiots playing every hand, and then decide what hands you will play against them. I like to pressure them pre-flop if I can. These players typically like to limp and they hate it if you make big pre-flop raises or re-raises against them. If you do this with a high pocket pair, they will many times go all-in pre-flop with some real crap hands that will give you a huge advantage and the opportunity to double up. Just don't get too irate when they luck out. It does happen, just re-buy and wait for the next opportunity to punish the donkeys.
Re-buys can be fun and they can be frustrating, just set some limits and then play your game. Do not loosen your play to match the morons who happen to be sitting next to you. Wait for chances to pop them for all their chips, and let it roll off your back the 10% of the time that they luck out.
