Rebuys without an Add On?

dajebriza · #1 (**permalink**) 01-14-2007, 09:09 AM

What's everyone's thinking about having a tournament structure with a Rebuy but not an Add-On? Do they need to go hand in hand? It seems to me that if you offer Rebuys, you must also offer Add-Ons when the Rebuy period ends out of fairness to the players that have not rebought and still have a decent portion of their starting stack left.

Say I am playing conservatively, and another player is loose aggressive. He may rebuy once or twice and I not at all before the Rebuy period ends. When the Rebuy period ends, he may have a larger stack than I do because he rebought recently and I have been minimizing my losses, waiting for opportunities to win big.

If I am not offered an Add-On, and I only have half my stack left, it seems like I would be forced to make an all-in call against another medium stack to either double up and be even with the recent rebuyers, or worst case, just lose and rebuy myself to increase the size of my stack at the end of the Rebuy period.

By offering an Add-on, you allow players who have conserved some of their starting stacks to maintain their lead over those who have gone bust and rebought to a starting stack size.

links_slayer · #2 (**permalink**) 01-14-2007, 09:13 AM

I don't think you have to do both. You can have rebuys w/ add-ons, rebuys w/ no add-ons, add-ons w/ no rebuys, or neither. It's your tourney, run it how you want. You do bring up some good points though.

hachkc · #3 (**permalink**) 01-14-2007, 10:45 AM

I'm personally not a fan of rebuys but if you have them, I think add-ons are a necessity. I'm also a fan of a split buyin for this purpose. Think a T5000 where your initial buyin gets you T2500 and then you can rebuy T2500 if you bust out at any point upto round X OR addon T2500 at the end of round X. You can't do both though.

links_slayer · #4 (**permalink**) 01-14-2007, 10:48 AM

Is it really true that you can't have a tourney w/ re-buys AND add-ons? I was under the impression you could do both, one, or neither.

hachkc · #5 (**permalink**) 01-14-2007, 10:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by links_slayer

Is it really true that you can't have a tourney w/ re-buys AND add-ons? I was under the impression you could do both, one, or neither.

There isn't a rule about it but I just think its fairer to the other players IMO. Nothing like have someone go all-in with 63o offsuit right before the cut off just so he can rebuy and gets to reload with more than your stack by playing bad. True it costs more but some folks don't like it.

RTBrandy · #6 (**permalink**) 01-14-2007, 11:50 AM

In one of my tournies, we havea re-buy..only good in the first round (20 minutes)....

Last week we added in add-on's for this reason...

We had a guy call an all-in and lose....he was left with 150 chips in a T7500

according to the rules he couldn't re-buy...during their hand, the rounds changed...so if he HAD busted, he could've..

so we addeda rule that would allow add-on's if you were under 1500 you could add-on 6,000 (again: first round only)

but that was one danger of not having the add-on

jbones · #7 (**permalink**) 01-14-2007, 02:19 PM

Of course you can have rebuys and addons. What you're describing isn't unfair, it just changes what type of play is optimal for the situation. If you don't adapt it might seem unfair as you have a short stack, but it's really just because you didn't play correctly considering the situation.

dajebriza · #8 (**permalink**) 01-14-2007, 03:27 PM

What's the correct way to play? Playing like a donk and taking wreckless risks in the hope that you can double and triple up? All the while, knowing that if you get busted out, which is likely to happen, you can just bail yourself out and buy back in?

That's why I don't like playing rebuys online - because it's an all-in fest for the first hour. I like rebuys for the simple fact that my players are friends of mine and I like them to have a good time and be able to stay and play if they happen to make a bad call or suffer a bad beat early in the tournament.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jbones

Of course you can have rebuys and addons. What you're describing isn't unfair, it just changes what type of play is optimal for the situation. If you don't adapt it might seem unfair as you have a short stack, but it's really just because you didn't play correctly considering the situation.

hachkc · #9 (**permalink**) 01-14-2007, 03:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dajebriza

What's the correct way to play? Playing like a donk and taking wreckless risks in the hope that you can double and triple up? All the while, knowing that if you get busted out, which is likely to happen, you can just bail yourself out and buy back in?

That's why I don't like playing rebuys online - because it's an all-in fest for the first hour. I like rebuys for the simple fact that my players are friends of mine and I like them to have a good time and be able to stay and play if they happen to make a bad call or suffer a bad beat early in the tournament.

That's why I like the split buy in option I discussed earlier. I play in a game where a decent number of folks have like a 45 min drive. We had 1 hand awhile where the top boat was taken out by a Royal in the 1st round. It just provides a safety net in case something happens

dajebriza · #10 (**permalink**) 01-14-2007, 04:44 PM

Very interesting idea. I've never heard of this but can see how it could accomplish the same end. I'll have to try it at my next game and see how my players like it. It's like banking half your buy-in chips to ensure you can't lose them all too early in the game.

One thing I do really like about the add-on, is watching how my cheaper players always get pulled into adding to the prize pool because several other players at the table jump at the opportunity to top up their chip stack and suddenly they see their own stacks shrink relative to the average sized stacks. Reluctantly they pull another bill out of their wallets and add-on with the rest which helps create a nice prize pool.

Hehe, believe it or not, I have players that show up with just enough money to buy in and don't bring any more so they can't lose it. But inevitably, they end up borrowing their rebuy or add-on when pressured by the other players to not be a wet blanket.

I've even had new players show up to games with NO money, not knowing that an invite to a poker game means playing with real money.

Quote:

Originally Posted by hachkc

I'm personally not a fan of rebuys but if you have them, I think add-ons are a necessity. I'm also a fan of a split buyin for this purpose. Think a T5000 where your initial buyin gets you T2500 and then you can rebuy T2500 if you bust out at any point upto round X OR addon T2500 at the end of round X. You can't do both though.