Add-ons

[JoeyT]

If a tournament buy in is $5, giving you T1000, and allows an addon at the end of the rebuy period... for an additional $5 and T1000, what is the maximum number of chips you would have at the end of the rebuy period to merit an addon? I was just in a tourney on UB... and was at T7700 at the end of the rebuy period, in 5th place of the remaining 200 players. I chose not to add-on. Mistake?

Thanks much.

EDIT: The blinds were starting at 50 and 100 after the rebuy period.

[Rickfish]

I would not have added on either. My yardstick is normally that I will not add on if I have 5 buy-ins or more, in this case T5000+. I have heard others say "don't add on if the add-in is less than 25% of your chips" which (T4000+) is not too different to my yardstick. If I'm not sure I look at the other stacks at my table (after add-ons) - if I have most of them covered I don't add-on.

[Greg (FossilMan)]

If the cost per chip is the same throughout the tourney, then adding on or not is basically neutral from a purely mathematical viewpoint.

The real world issue is how well you play compared to the field. If you're much better than them, then T1000 in your stack is worth more than T1000 in their stacks, and you should add-on. In other words, if you're a great player, $5 worth of chips might be worth $10 in front of you, thus earning you $5 in EV for that add-on.

You would probably have to have something close to 5% of all the chips in play before the size of your stack has much bearing on the decision.

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)