Every online poker room that I have ever played in has offered rebuy tournaments to their players. A rebuy tournament is simply a regular tournament except you’ll be able to rebuy chips if you run out. Typically you can rebuy chips when you run out for the first hour. At the end of the first hour the rebuy period will end. In some of these tournaments there will be an add-on period for a few minutes after the rebuy period. During the add-on period anyone left in the tournament is allowed to purchase some more chips.
Below are some tips that you should follow if you want to have the best chance at winning a rebuy tournament. A rebuy tournament is one of the hardest tournaments to win for several reasons which we’ll look at right now.
* During the first hour of play in a rebuy tournament you want to play semi-loose poker. You want to try and see a lot of cheap flops when possible. The idea behind seeing a lot of flops is that you’ll hit a few of them and be able to build up your chip stack. The action is always loose during the first hour of rebuy tournaments because everyone is allowed to buy more chips if they run out. Since people can rebuy chips they often play looser then they typically would.
* One thing that you can’t do in a rebuy tournament is sit around waiting for monster hands. This type of strategy will work wonders in certain tournament formats, but it won’t cut it in a rebuy tournament. Since there will be an increase in the amount of chips in play throughout the first hour you need to make sure you’re increasing your chip stack by at least the same pace. Most poker rooms list the average chip stack in the tournament and it’s a good idea to try and always be a bit above the average.
* If you run out of chips early in a rebuy tournament you need to decide whether or not you should rebuy chips. Generally you should rebuy chips, if you’re not planning on rebuying chips in this type of tournament format then you really shouldn’t play this type of tournament. There are some times when you shouldn’t rebuy though. If you lost your chips because you were on tilt, or being really impatient then you might not want to spend more money on the tournament as it might be a waste.
* If you make it through the first hour you’ll need to decide if you want to purchase the add-on chips. I generally only purchase the add-on chips if it will at least double my chip stack. If I already have a nice amount of chips then a few more thousands chips isn’t going to help me out and it isn’t worth the money.
* Once you make it past the add-on period you can begin playing your style of tournament poker. The first thing you need to do is tighten up your game. The blinds will be bigger now and you won’t be able to rebuy back into the tournament if you run out of chips at this point.
