When I first started playing tournament poker a few years ago, I did everything in my power to steer clear of rebuy tournaments. In my mind, NL Hold 'Em was a game where "all in" should mean "all in," and the only function that rebuys served were to give bad players additional lives after foolish plays.

Over the last couple of years, my perception of rebuy tournaments has changed dramatically. These tournaments have now become my favorite tourneys to play, as well as one of my highest ROI contributors. <READMORE>The interesting thing is, there are still a large number of players who discredit the rebuy format and do not take advantage of the money to be made in these venues. In the following piece, I will explain to you why I believe that rebuy tournaments are profitable and help to disprove some of the common fallacies associated with these tournaments.

In any non-satellite MTT, the money is heavily weighted in the top three spots. Given this information, one's goal should always be to at least make the top three of each tourney they play. In a rebuy tournament, it is very common to lose 1/4 of the field by the end of the rebuy period. This mass attrition rate can be viewed as being similar to a freezeout where 1/4 of the field did not show, but were still kind of enough to subsidize the prize pool. From a numbers perspective, the significant decrease in field size greatly enhances your chances of placing top three or winning the event. From a value perspective, the subsidized payouts coupled with the decreased field size give you a greater percentage of equity in the prize pool.

In terms of play, I believe that good players can gain significant advantages in rebuy tournaments, advantages that are not available in freezeouts.

First off, no matter how short you are after the rebuy period, the blinds are usually small enough, and you usually have enough chips where your M is not in jeopardy of falling into the red zone. This basically creates a deep stack tourney that allows you to be selective and pick your spots, whereas in a freezeout with a normal structure, failing to win any significant pots in the first hour usually means forcing a push in the second hour.

Secondly, many players simply have a very hard time switching gears to a normal tournament setting once the rebuy period has concluded. This creates many loose calls and unadvised raises that can be taken advantage of by good players.

Thirdly, rebuy tourneys create vastly disproportionate stack sizes at the tables. Many times, this phenomena results in two different situations that can be preyed upon by good players: Stack Ego and Stack Envy.

Stack Ego occurs when a player accumulates a huge amount of chips during the rebuy period and feels that it is their duty to bully the table and keep their name atop the leaderboard without dropping in position. This flawed sense of duty and expectation, coupled with the fact that many of these individuals do not normally play big stack poker, make them prime candidates for a good player to double through.

Stack Envy occurs when the smaller stacks tend to put too much emphasis on the sizes of the other stacks at the table. Many times these smaller stacks will prematurely push/call preflop or fail to find the fold button postflop, due to the fact that they feel the need to "catch up." These tendencies make accumulation a much easier job for a good player.

**

I hope that I have done a decent job explaining the value of rebuy tournaments. Now I would like to address a couple of the common fallacies surrounding rebuys.

Note: Both of these assumptions tend to go hand in hand with each other.

Common Assumptions Surrounding Rebuys:

1. You must be a LAG player to be successful in rebuy tourneys. This assumption is completely false. There are many TAG players who are very successful in these tournaments. I believe that many times, playing tight-aggressive in these tournaments is actually very beneficial, because it allows you to trap the big stacks racing for the chip lead.

By no means am I saying that there is one way to play these tournaments. I am a firm believer in the fact that their are several ways to skin a cat, and I also believe that you should always be aware of the play at your table and adjust your play accordingly, but I do believe that many players falsely assume that you must play LAG in order to be successful in these tournaments.

2. You must rebuy a large number of times in order to accumulate a large stack and have a chance of winning the tournament. I believe this assumption to be completely false as well. I liken this assumption to a fact from the WSOP Main Event. Did you know that since it became a 4+ day event, there has never been a player who has led the WSOP Main Event on the first day and proceeded to Final Table the event? I often see players rebuy a mass number of times during the first hour to accumulate a huge stack and then fail to even make it into the money. If you have found success in these tourneys through buying a stack during the rebuy hour, please do not change your style of play, but from a profitability perspective, I truly believe that limiting your rebuys is the best way to get a positive return on your investment. Just remember, the real tournament does not start until after the rebuy period has ended.

If you agree with all or parts of my article, please allow this information to help you feel comfortable in a rebuy setting. I find that I play my best in settings where I am comfortable with the tournament and its structures, and I think that most people do, as well. </READMORE>