$11 Rebuy.How much at first break would make the addon not worthwhile?

[Black Aces 518]

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you want the cheap extra chips more




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well that's not right.. they're less and less important the bigger your stack.

Me adding 66% to my stack is way more helpful than adding say 10%


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Sklansky agress with you, but you are both wrong. Yeh the chips make more difference to you with a shorter stack. However, the real money is at the final table. Adding on to a big stack gives you a lot more than $10 in expected win increase.

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Yeah, the big money is at the final table. Your chances at the final table are minimally affected by going from, say, 57K to 59K when the blind levels are going to be 75-150.

[Toddy]

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you want the cheap extra chips more




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well that's not right.. they're less and less important the bigger your stack.

Me adding 66% to my stack is way more helpful than adding say 10%


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Sklansky agress with you, but you are both wrong. Yeh the chips make more difference to you with a shorter stack. However, the real money is at the final table. Adding on to a big stack gives you a lot more than $10 in expected win increase.

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Yeah, the big money is at the final table. Your chances at the final table are minimally affected by going from, say, 57K to 59K when the blind levels are going to be 75-150.

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Why couldn't I find these words? Pretty much exactly what I was trying to get at.

[nsj]

Stars doesn't let you take the add-on in its rebuys if you reach the break with 30K++. Or at least it used to be that way.

So they're basically telling you, broadly speaking, when the add-on stops having any +EV value (ie. adding 13 bbs to your 200bb stack)

[Toddy]

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Stars doesn't let you take the add-on in its rebuys if you reach the break with 30K++. Or at least it used to be that way.

So they're basically telling you, broadly speaking, when the add-on stops having any +EV value (ie. adding 13 bbs to your 200bb stack)

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I find it hard to believe that Stars would have a fixed amount of money set aside that they stop allowing you to have add-ons. What do they care what you spend your money on? Can anyone verify this?

[Exitonly]

they don't do that anymore

[mudbuddha]

if you've spent 20$ to get 40k in chips. and you can spend 10$ more for 42.5k thats 50% what u have put up for a minimal edge..

i dont see why you would. sure if you kept winning, that 2.5 would grow to 5, 10,20,40.. but if you have a stack.. u may not even touch those chips till much later

[The Venetian]

Some of you guys aren't thinking about this right. It's not that you're increasing your buy-in by 50% or whatever to only increase your stake by a small amount. Your earlier buy-ins are gone. It's what your $X additional add-on will return to you in additional EV. If that amount is greater than $X, then it's worth it.

The fact that, in most cases, the add-on gives you more chips/$ makes it virtually mandatory except in rare cases.

A while back, I wanted to create a spreadsheet to let me enter tournament-specific data to make a mathematical decision as to whether it was +EV to add-on or not. I found that unless the tournament was extremely small, the add-on was for less chips/$, or I had an excessive amount of chips in play (like 20% or more), the add-on was always +EV.

Here's some math to help:

Take the Stars $11 rebuy. 1,500 entrants (T1,500), 4,000 re-buys (T1,500), 1,000 add-ons (T2,000), so a total prize pool of $65,000 and 10,250,000 chips in play.

You have 5,000 chips and are considering whether to add on or not and are an average player.

Assume (and this is the possible catch) that all chips are of equal value because of the massive amount in play, divided up by hundreds of players, and the long distance from the lowest payout.

In this spot, 5,000 chips would be worth 5000/10250000 of the prize pool, or $31.71.

7,000 chips (taking the add-on) would be worth 7000/10252000 of the prize pool, or $44.38.

The difference of $12.67 is your EV for adding on. Since you're only spending $10, it's +EV and you should do it.

To me, the interesting thing in massive rebuys is that even what we think of as a "huge stack" still benefits from the add-on.

If you have 50,000 chips in the same spot, your pre-add-on EV is $317.07 and post-add-on EV is $329.69, for a difference of $12.62, barely any different from the other spot.

I used Excel's Goal Seek to find a spot where adding on in the $11 rebuy in this spot would be breakeven EV for the average player and it's over 2,000,000 chips.

Another way to think about this is that 50,000 is considered a huge stack after the first hour in the $11 rebuy, but the average chip stack at the final table, where the real money is, is 1,000,000. An extra 2,000 would still be nice to have, especially when you consider how it will double as well if you double up.

Further, if you factor in the idea that a single chip in your stack would be worth more than in the average player's, it makes it even more +EV to add-on.

In most cases, the only spot where it would be -EV to add-on was if you were acutely aware that you were much less skilled than the other players, so the additional chips added on would not translate into anywhere near your expected return in actual $.

I'm aware that it is very easy to come up with extreme scenarios that poke holes in the above, and that the fact that tournaments are not winner-take-all (often paying out 100-200 in big events) change things slightly, but they will not change things for 99+% of situations that you'll find in online or live tournaments, and if it comes up, you won't be that wrong by just adding on anyway.

Always add-on.

[jcm4ccc]

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Uh.. back that up with some math, because it doesnt make any sense.

edit: Basically you're telling me you'll have a higher EV w/ a 40k stack than a 5k one..

Thanks.

Your EV will increase more with an increase from 3k to 5k, than it will from 40k to 42k.

Without a doubt, please, try and prove me wrong.

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I will try to prove you wrong. I don't know how to use mathematical formulas to prove you wrong, but then I doubt that you could use mathematical formulas to prove your case. I'll try a logical approach.

#1: There are some chip counts in which it is NOT +EV to spend the extra ten dollars to get another 2000 chips.

For example, let's say that you are left with 1 chip because you lost most of your chips on the last hand of the rebuy period. You could spend another $10 to have 2001 chips. However, over the long run, you will probably lose more than you would gain. So you would be better off just playing with your one chip (or shutting off your computer and going to bed).

#2: There is a point where it is basically even money as to whether you spend the extra $10 during the add-on period. This is just logical. If it is -EV to spend the $10 when you have 1 chip, and +EV to spend the $10 when you have 10,000 chips, then somewhere between 1 chip and 10,000 chips is a point where it doesn't much matter, EV-wise, as to whether you spend the extra $10 or not.

#3: Maybe that point where it doesn't much matter, EV-wise, as to whether you spend the extra $10 is around 3000 chips. Hell, it could even be -EV to spend the $10 when the rest of the field is so far ahead of you. Now, personal experience and antecdotes suggest that it can be worth it to spend the extra $10 when you have 3000 chips. But personal experience doesn't cut it. We tend to remember unique events, such as winning a substantial amount of money when we only had 5000 chips after the add-on period; we tend to forget common events, such as finishing OTM when we only had 5000 chips after the add-on period.

At any rate, even if it is +EV to spend the $10 during the add-on period when you have 3000 chips, it's probably not worth that much. I would say that you would probably be better off, EV-wise, in spending that $10 on a $10 tournament, rather than this tournament.

#4: If you are anywhere near the top ten after the add-on period, you have a decent chance of making the final table.

#5: Each jump in the standings at the final table can make a huge difference in the amount of money won.

#6: 2000 chips at the end of the add-on period could easily be worth 8000 - 16000 chips by the time you get to the final table, if you double up 3 or 4 times before you get to the final table.

#7: 8000 extra chips at the final table can easily make the difference between, say, 3rd and 4th, or 9th and 7th place, or whatever.

So I think it's very possible that adding on when you have 3000 chips will make very little difference, money-wise, over the long run, and that adding on when you are in the top ten after the add-on period could make a huge difference, money-wise, over the long run.

[Exitonly]

When you're a short stack, and you take the addon, all of your double ups from now on will be affected by the addon.

When you'er a top 10 stack, the only time that addon comes into play is when you get all in vs a stack that has you covered.

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Despite your write up, i don't see how your EV increase from 3k in chips to 5k in chips, isn't greater than your EV increase from 45 to 47.

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But yes, i agree you can have too few chips to make sense, like your 1 chip scenario.

i'm really tired now, i might get more into this later, but i am 99.5% sure about this. (i'm not sure if you believe i'm wrong, or if you were just trying to prove me wrong)

[jcm4ccc]

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Here's some math to help:

Take the Stars $11 rebuy. 1,500 entrants (T1,500), 4,000 re-buys (T1,500), 1,000 add-ons (T2,000), so a total prize pool of $65,000 and 10,250,000 chips in play.

You have 5,000 chips and are considering whether to add on or not and are an average player.

Assume (and this is the possible catch) that all chips are of equal value because of the massive amount in play, divided up by hundreds of players, and the long distance from the lowest payout.

In this spot, 5,000 chips would be worth 5000/10250000 of the prize pool, or $31.71.

7,000 chips (taking the add-on) would be worth 7000/10252000 of the prize pool, or $44.38.

The difference of $12.67 is your EV for adding on. Since you're only spending $10, it's +EV and you should do it.


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So what if you only have 1 chip at the end of the rebuy period? Adding 2000 chips increases your prize pool, by your method, by over $12. Do you think you should do it?

I don't think your assumption that every chip is a constant, equal value for every player, regardless of stack size, is at all tenable.