strategy change with rebuys?

[lebowski58]

Just curious what adjustments you guys make when playing tourneys with rebuys for the first hour. I'm playing in one tonight. Blinds will up every 20 minutes (T500 blinds start at 1-2, 2-4, 3-6). Any ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks
Chris

[CountDuckula]

You might have more luck posting this in the Multi-table Tournament forum; I'm not aware of any single-table tournaments with rebuys. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

But to answer your question (and I'm not very experienced with rebuy tournaments, so you should take what I say with a grain of salt); basically, I'm not quite as shy about losing all my chips during the rebuy period as I would be in a freeze-out. I was in one at the Orleans last week, and did respectably (I didn't cash, but finished in the top 30-40% of the 148 player field). The format was T250 for $30 (T200 for $27, plus T50 for buying the $3 "dealer bonus card", which everyone did), one T200 add-on for $10 at the start of the tournament, unlimited T200 rebuys for $10 each any time you dipped below T200 during the rebuy period (1st hour or so), and one T200 add-on at the end of the rebuy period. My approach was a) take the initial add-on, b) rebuy whenever I got below T200 (it turned out this only happened once during the rebuy period) and c) take the final add-on. That way, I made sure I had the greatest number of chips I could actually buy (too bad I didn't win more off of other guys, but c'est la vie). The main adjustment I made in terms of actual play was to be slightly more aggressive during the rebuy period, to take advantage of the safety net; i.e., I pushed smaller edges than I might have if I didn't have rebuys to fall back on.

I believe Sklansky's Tournament Poker for Advanced Players addresses this subject to some extent; I don't have the book handy to look it up for you, though.

-Mike