You did it!
You flopped the nut straight and your opponent, the toughest player at your table, goes all in and has you covered. Of course, you call and he shows a small set. You got him! You’re going to double up! When he pairs the board on the river for the full house, your heart sinks to the floor.
In a typical tournament, you would have no choice but to slink back to trail, adding your pathetic bad beat story to the litany of those from the other losers. However, in a special type of tournament, you can restore your starting chip stack with one magic word.
“Rebuy!”
Rebuy tournaments are becoming more popular with casinos and cardrooms around the country as well as at most online poker sites. Many super-satellites that earn players seats into larger tournaments use a rebuy structure to insure a bigger prize pool and more entries. Some of the World Series of Poker tournaments also offer a rebuy structure. In the $1000 No-Limit Hold’em with Rebuys tournament at the 2006 World Series, famous poker pro Daniel Negreanu rebought his was back in over forty times! While this is a more extreme example of using the power of that magic word, you may want to keep in mind the differences between a rebuy tournament and the traditional freeze-out format.
Opponents play looser in early rounds. In a freeze-out tournament, good players typically only play big pots when they have big hands during the early rounds. In most cases, they don’t want to risk their tournament survival by gambling with mediocre hands, especially in the early stages with low blinds and no antes. In a rebuy tournament, players know that they can buy their way back in during the rebuy period, which usually lasts until the fourth or fifth blind level. In fact, many players consider it an advantage to rebuy as early as possible, even if their chip stack falls just below the maximum level eligible for the rebuy option.
More rebuys means more chips on the table. In a freeze-out tournament, the tournament directors determine the number of chips each player receives. For instance, a small daily tournament may give each player two thousand tournament chips each. At a ten-seat table, that leaves twenty thousand chips in play at the table. In a tournament with unlimited rebuys, a player may accumulate five to ten times their starting stack of their opponents constantly rebuy. With such a substantial reward available, many players will take aim at the biggest stack, which encourages even more reckless play.
Good rebuy players budget for their rebuys. With the notable exception of Daniel Negreanu, most players don’t enjoy dipping into their wallets for another rebuy after a loss. Many expert players recommend a budget of two or three rebuys plus the usual add-on at the end of the rebuy period. For those players who can’t budge that much for a single tournament or who haven’t yet adjusted to the rebuy structure, many online sites offer tournaments with rebuys of $2 or less.
If freeze-out tournaments can be compared to chess matches, rebuy tournaments are more like games of “chicken” – hard-charging, gun-slinging shoot-‘em-ups. Just like your childhood games of “cops and robbers”, you can always spring back to life after getting riddled with bullets by shouting one magic word.
“Rebuy!”