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The "ORTS" - The Best of Two Worlds

by Matt Lessinger

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Nowadays, online poker offers a much wider variety of tournaments than you'll find in B&M cardrooms. Of course, you can always find the traditional type, with no rebuys, 15-minute limits, and a standard payout structure. In fact, when online tournaments were introduced, that was really all there was. And, since that was what I became accustomed to, I didn't immediately pay too much attention when online sites began offering variations from the norm.

Then I dabbled around with rebuy tournaments, and suddenly I discovered all of the favorable reasons to play them. I'll discuss some of them below, but, if you're interested, you can read two of my past articles, which looked at all of the various reasons in detail. They were:

"The Best Thing About Online Rebuy Tournaments" at

http://www.cardplayer.com/poker_magazine/archives/?a_id=13862&m_id=74

and, "More Things to Like About Online Rebuy Tournaments" at

http://www.cardplayer.com/poker_magazine/archives/?a_id=14001&m_id=74

Then I discovered "Turbo Tournaments" with five-minute limits instead of the typical 15, and I realized how much I liked them. Again, one of my past articles discussed the various reasons I grew to prefer them. It was:

"Turbo Tournaments" at

http://www.cardplayer.com/poker_magazine/archives/?a_id=14458&m_id=74

The problem was that, for a long time, I had to choose one or the other. There were no turbo tournaments that also offered rebuys.

But Now…

Several sites commonly spread what I call the Online Rebuy Turbo Satellite, or ORTS for short. The ORTS combines the benefits of a rebuy tournament with the speed of a turbo one, and I love them. In fact, I'm playing one as I write. No kidding.

If you're not familiar with the ORTS, let me describe them a little. As satellites, they are qualifiers to larger events. For example, you might have one with a $22 buy-in and $20 rebuys, which gives you a chance to win a $530 tournament seat. Or, an $11 one with $10 rebuys might lead to a $215 seat. Generally speaking, the ORTS is structured so that approximately 10-15 percent of the field will win seats.

The limits are five minutes long, with a break and an add-on period after the first half hour. Once the add-ons are done, the prize pool is calculated and posted, so that everyone knows exactly how many seats are up for grabs, (and then any leftover cash usually goes to the next spot). So, if the ORTS has 100 players, you might end up with about 12 or 13 seats on average. The tournament is then played down to the final 12 or 13 or however many seats are being given away, at which point the proceedings abruptly end, and the seats are automatically awarded.

If there is any drawback, it could be that making it to the end won't get you any final table experience, since the typical ORTS usually gives away more than 10 seats. However, that is an extremely small price to pay for the ORTS' numerous up sides. Just to name a few:

You Get Great Value for Your Money

A typical tournament charges 10 percent juice. If you're playing a $55 tournament, $50 will go into the prize pool while $5 goes to the house. But with an ORTS, or any rebuy tournament, a much smaller percentage goes to the house. If you're playing a $22 ORTS, you'll probably average a rebuy and an add-on (as will the rest of the field), which means you're essentially playing a $62 tournament, yet only $2 goes to the house. In the poker world, you won't find much better value than that.

Like Clockwork, One-Fourth of the Field Will Bow Out Before the Add-Ons

It's quite amazing, really. One quarter of the players (give or take a few) always decide to call it quits before the first break. For you, that represents significant dead money, since none of them can possibly win. You just have to make sure that you make a commitment (as I do) to last through the rebuy period and to add-on, so that you never fall into the dead money category.

Sure, there are times when I have to make three or four rebuys, and suddenly a $22 ORTS costs me $122. But each successive rebuy has a positive expectation, so it is still the correct move. And even though it's no fun to have to occasionally make numerous rebuys, it's more than compensated for by the times that you cruise through the first half hour without needing to rebuy, while the prize pool is being built by your opponents, who are either rebuying or dropping out.

The Average ORTS Takes Only 80-90 Minutes

I don't want to play in a satellite tournament that takes five hours. My goal in the ORTS is to win a seat for a larger tournament - one that will probably take a long time to play - and I don't want to be mentally drained before I even get there. That's why I find the length of the ORTS to be just right. It's not too long, but it's long enough to let the skilled players rise to the top more often than not.

Because of the Rebuys and Add-Ons, There Are More Chips in Play

These chips help compensate for the tournaments' short length. Even with five-minute limits, you won't find yourself short-stacked right from the get-go. You'll have enough time to be patient, rather than having to gamble with the first playable hand you find. If you consider yourself a skillful player, then you should certainly appreciate the added chips in play.

You Must Adopt a Survival Strategy

This isn't necessarily one of the upsides of the ORTS, but it definitely helps to expand your game. In a regular tournament, I'm all about playing for first place, or at least the top three spots. Squeaking into the money with a short stack holds very little appeal for me. Since first place usually pays 15to 20 times what tenth place pays, it is quite correct to gamble to make a run at the top spots.

However, the ORTS forces you to change your thinking. If 12 seats are being awarded, then when you get down to 12 players, it doesn't matter if you are the chip leader or the short stack; you're all winning the same thing. Therefore, accumulating chips doesn't have nearly the same value as it does in a regular tournament.

Ah, but now I'm getting into the strategy of the ORTS, which I think should be a topic for another day. But when you get a chance, jump into an ORTS if you haven't already. They're a lot of fun, they're not particularly time-consuming, and with a nice combination of luck and skill, they can be quite profitable.

Matt Lessinger's Book of Bluffs is now available everywhere. You can purchase it at www.cardplayer.com by clicking "shop online." You can also find other articles of Matt's in his "Bet With Less" column in Card Player magazine.

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