Pot Limit Rebuy Tournament in Edinburgh, Scotland - Advice needed

[Alex Scott]

I posted this on RGP last week and got an interesting response, was wondering if anyone else has any thoughts?

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Hi guys,

I've just finished playing a Pot Limit Holdem tournament down at my local
casino. It's a £10 buy-in, and you can rebuy / top up as many times as you
like during the first hour and a half. The tourney usually gets 35-40
players, and pays out to the top three. First place is usually close to
£850. Each player starts with 400 points in chips, and the blinds start at
10 and 20 points.

Tonight I played an extremely tight-aggressive strategy. If I was in a hand
I was raising the pot, with the exception of when I was in the blind
positions. This brings me to my questions for discussion:

1. Is the most appropriate bet size in Pot Limit Hold'em always the size of
the pot or close to it? The more successful players at the tournament seem
to almost always bet / raise this amount. I have tended to bet the size of
the pot in early rounds and 1/2 to 2/3 the size in rounds where the pot is
larger and / or I don't want to scare off opponents / risk too many chips on
a marginal hand.

2. Should I play more hands during the rebuy period, even though there are
more players at the table in this time? Also, should I bluff more during
this time? I barely bluffed at all until after the rebuy cutoff since I
thought people were more apt to call when they could reach into their pocket
for more cash.

As it turned out, by the way, I had more than quadrupled my chips by half
ten. Some of my opponents were not happy with me at this point, and were
talking under their breath about me, and obviously on tilt. I kept quiet,
and didn't change my strategy.

3. Should I have contributed further to my opponents being on tilt by
throwing in a few insults / jibes / etc? Some great ones came to mind but I
thought I'd be a gentleman. This is more of an ethical issue really.

Immediately after the rebuy period ended I was dealt 10-10, raised the pot,
got one caller, and lost to a guy who played 8-8 and flopped a set. Straight
after this I was dealt K-K, raised the pot, got one caller, and eventually
lost to a guy with A-J (he made a pair of aces on the river). At this point
the blinds were 50 and 100, I had 300 left, and I eventually went out in
23rd position, with two pair against a straight.

I've not been playing poker seriously for long - less than a year - and I'm
very keen to learn. Everybody at the casino underestimates me - thinks I'm
young and inexperienced (true, I'm 21), unsophisticated (false), predictable
(false) etc. etc. I'd love to exploit this, and any advice you can give me
would be invaluable. As a little added incentive, almost everybody there is
thoroughly unpleasant (especially when they're losing), so they deserve to
lose!

Thanks in advance

Alex Scott