More Things to Like About Online Rebuy Tournaments

Two months back I wrote "The Best Thing About Online Rebuy Tournaments" (see the March 2004 Online Poker News). I said that about 25 percent of the players in every online rebuy tournament (ORT) go broke before the rebuy period is over. Those players provide you with substantial dead money in the prize pool, as long as you are willing to make as many rebuys as necessary to survive the first hour.

I also wrote that I was never that big a fan of rebuy tournaments. But times change, opinions change, and I have to admit that I now play more ORTs than non-rebuy tournaments. What has swayed me? In addition to the dead money (which is still my favorite reason to play ORTs), I've found four more reasons to like rebuy tournaments:

Reason No. 1: There's no "juice" on the rebuys.

It's standard for an online site to charge 10 percent juice on its tournaments. If you play an $11 tournament, $10 goes into the prize pool while the other $1 goes to the house. Similarly, a $55 tournament would be broken down as $50 plus $5. Compared to most land-based tournaments, this is a very reasonable price to pay.

But with ORTs, you can do even better. Let's say you're playing in an $11 tournament with rebuys. On most sites, the rebuys will be $10, not $11. Let's assume that each player averages one rebuy plus an add-on at the end of the rebuy period. Now, you're all essentially playing in a $30 tournament, but you've each given only $1 to the site.

That represents tremendous value for you. It's like paying 3.3 percent to the house instead of 10 percent. Even if you don't need to rebuy, you benefit from everyone else who does, since the entire amount of their rebuys is being added to the prize money. So, if you are looking to play a $30 or $50 tournament, maybe you should consider this option. In terms of value for your money, an $11 or $22 tournament with $10 or $20 rebuys might be a better choice.

Reason No. 2: Players are wild and loose during the rebuy period.

Since they know they can rebuy if they go broke, you'll see players take all sorts of risks. Personally, I think the right strategy is to go against that flow. Since everyone else is mixing it up during the rebuy period, you can afford to sit back and wait for premium cards. If you find a big hand, you can probably pick off one of the loose players who is gambling it up. And if you get unlucky and lose, you have the rebuy option available to you. But that option is not something you should depend on. If you're playing well, you should need to rebuy only as a result of having lost after going in with the best hand. And from the ORTs I've seen, you'll have plenty of chances during the rebuy period to get your money in the pot with the best of it.

Here's an extreme example: I've been in several ORTs with a player who moved all in before every flop! We started with $1,500 in chips, and he said his goal was to reach $30,000 before the rebuy period ended, and he didn't care how many rebuys it took to achieve that goal. Sometimes he'd get lucky and double up four or five times, and then he'd slow down. But once, I saw him make more than 25 rebuys! He was almost always the chip leader when the rebuy period was over, but he usually paid an absurd price for that privilege.

Obviously, this extreme case is rare, but there are definitely players who do this to a lesser extent. They are determined to have a certain number of chips before the rebuy period is over, and they will overplay their marginal hands, figuring they will either double up or rebuy. Most of the time, they will end up spending too much money compared to the money they stand to win. Also, accumulating chips early in an ORT isn't terribly important. This leads to reason No. 3.

Reason No. 3: There are more chips per player, thus the tournament has much more play to it.

In a typical online tournament, everyone starts with $1,500 in tournament chips. In an ORT, let's say that everyone averages a rebuy and an add-on. That means that everyone is effectively starting with $4,500 in tournament chips. The number of chips in play has tripled, even though the limits still go up at the same rate. That gives you a lot more play for your money, which is good for everyone involved. And if you're a skilled, patient player, it should give you a significant advantage.

Reason No. 4: The accounting of the rebuys is precise.

This is more of an afterthought than anything else, but it still helps to put one's mind at ease. As soon as a player rebuys in an ORT, you can go to the tournament lobby and see the number of rebuys increase by one, and the prize pool adjusted by the appropriate amount. At any given time, you can check the total number of rebuys, the total prize pool, and the number of chips in play. Contrast this to a land-based tournament, where you have to hope the tournament director is keeping an accurate count of the rebuys. I'm happy to see any situation in which you can eliminate human error.

The bottom line is that I'm sold. I'm finally convinced that ORTs are the way to go. If you haven't tried them yet, maybe you should. You might become a convert like me.

Matt Lessinger's "Bet With Less" column appears in Card Player. He can be found playing online at RoyalVegasPoker.com, where he is a member of its team of experts, and can be reached at mlessinger@hotmail.com .

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