Rebuys

[three1ne]

Does any decent player welcome rebuys?
I personally cant stand them. Crazy calls and raises normally stop u from playing decent starting hands.

I clearly need tochange the way I play during rebuys but i find it so hard to play against maniacs.

Any opinons or stategys?

[2005]

2 separate strategies you can employ.
1. "the Negreanu style" put chips in and try to get lucky during the rebuy period and then use your image afterwards to get paid off.

2. "Rocky" peddle the nuts for the rebuy period.

I personally use style #2 most of the time. I love the 11R 20k guarantee on Stars, I think it has the best overlay of all tourneys on the internet w/ a first place of 8-9k on a regular basis.

Gavin Griffin

[B1GF1SHY]

Crazy calls and raises is what you want, you get to build your stack from other players who don't care. I don't see how anyone can hate rebuy tournaments, bigger prize pool and lots of chips being given away.

[shaniac]

I love the rebuys and it seems that your distaste for the style of play that persists in the first hour is missing the bigger picture.

As mentioned by others, there are ways of bulding a stack during the first hour--either by playing with OR against the grain--but the real joy of a rebuy tournament is the extra play you get to enjoy during the 2nd-4th hours.

The difference in play between a stars rebuy and a stars monobuy is enormous as the end of hour 3 dawns. It's usually a matter of around 30-40 minutes after the blinds hit 1K/2K before making the money and the extra chips in the rebuy events affords players A LOT of extra room to move. Even in the Sunday tournaments with the extra 1K/player in play, outcomes are often dictated by luck and your proximity to the felt just when things are getting interesting in the pre-bubble stage.

In the rebuys you can play any stack at any time and usually not be at too big a disadvantage. Whether you have 5K or 20K at the end of the break makes very little difference but it would be extremely rare to have even 5K after 1 hour of a monobuyin tournament on Stars.

Shane

[2005]

excellent point shaniac, very well said. Something I forgot to mention in my post and you hit it right on the head.

Gavin Griffin

[Lloyd]

How do you guys normally play during the re-buy? Are you just sitting back and waiting for a good hand and taking advantage of the maniacs? Or are you playing a lot more hands than normal hoping that hit on the flop?

I regularly play in a rebuy tournament that allows for one rebuy at anytime. Buy-in chips are 1000 and the rebuy (which is more like an add on) is for 1500. I usually use the rebuy immediately upon sitting down so I have more chips to play with if I get a big hand. Would anybody do differently?

[shaniac]

As 2005 alluded to in his first response--it depends!

I really play based on my mood, the way the table is playing and my bankroll relative to the buyin. If it's an $11 rebuy I might, um, experiment a lot, whereas that type of exploration can become expensive in the $109 rebuy.

I have had success in the first hour of the $11 on Stars (success arbitrarily defined by me as having 10K or more after adding on) by playing at both ends of the spectrum: Super tight on my original double buyin or super loose, playing many hands over-agressively, with no second thought about pulling out more money for rebuys.

BUT when I play in the latter style, the crucial thing is that I get a grip and change gears when I acquire a stack that puts the 10K after-addon mark into sight. I've seen players acquire fabulous stacks by playing complete balls-out reckless poker during the rebuy period only to persist along the same strategy and blow a decent nest-egg.

Shane