blonde poker forum

Just wondering if someone can give me a pointer here.

At what point does it become mathmatically incorrect to have a another re buy in a tournament? Assuming no prior max re buys set.

It doesn't

How many rebuys you have already taken is irrelevant to whether or not you should rebuy again.

so if the average chips at your table is 10,000 and a rebuy and an add on gets you 2k at the end of the re buys you think it perfectly reasonable to re buy?

i should have worded the question differently, previous re buys are imaterial i'm more wondering about chip equity for your money. (that maybe completely the wrong term)

i've seen the question asked before A2M but have yet to see a mathematical solution


My own experience based off many small comps is that I stand up and don't rebuy if

a) the chips I rebuy are only going to serve to fatten the prize pool for others...my rule of thumb for this is my rebuy chips are less than 20% of the average stack on the table...such that if I double up I still have to double up again to approach average. I consider usually this is a long shot. I would be interested to know others perceptions on whether this figure is in the right ballpark for you accepting that the chances of your rebuy having an impact on you winning the tournament are slim and therefore don't rebuy again

b) If I have exceeded my budget for the comp. I always set a budget (between point A and point B to allow flexilbility for bad beats/easy table etc) at the start.

wise words indeed.

What factors could we take into account.

Total chip count
Average stack
cost of re buy
Prize pool
number of players remaining

any more?

Time left to rebuy..likely number of hands left in rebuy period etc

provided you have the discipline to practice what you preach!!

(the above comment is not aimed at TightEnd but as gamblers in general - more often than not a player will decide that they go to the casino with £200 and tell themselves that they are only going to have at most 5x£20 buy ins. Then the gambler in them kicks in when they've lost the first 5 buy-ins and they then continue to do the 2nd £100 in because they cant stand up and walk away!).

I will leave a tournament during the rebuy hour if i feel that it isn't worth me continuing. Many a time i've ended up in a rebuy tourney online where you have three or four players going all in every hand in a bingo-fest which is good if you can get your hands at the beginning of the tourney to stand up as you find yourself sitting on a mountain of chips. Its not so good if your first few hands get outdrawn and you know it could well cost you another 5 or 6 rebuys to get yourself to a level where you could do their stacks some damage - its usually in these tourneys that i cut my losses and save my bankroll for another tourney.

why would prizepool have anything to do with it?
in a rebuy tourney you will ussually always get value for your rebuy. 20£ to win 1500£ is always great value. However it all comes down on whether you can win the thing so I would say prizepool and cost of rebuy are irrelevant and 95% of the choice has to do with whether you have a realistic chance of winning the tourney.

rebuys spent as a proportion of budget

whether flushy is sat at your table

What about the "I've already had 14 re-buys so 1 more won't make a difference to my pocket" mentality!  ;goodvevil;

Let's say, for arguments sake, it's the end of the re-buy period.

You estimate (given the other factors) that you have a 2% equity in the prize pool if you rebuy.

It's £20 to rebuy. There's £800 in the prize pool in Scenario A, and £3,000 in Scenario B.

How can the prize pool not be a very real, very fundamental factor? 

For me the equation is very simple (no surprise there) in live tournies. Do I want to play or do I want to go home? This whole question comes down to a much bigger question. Why do you play? If you look at the answers to date, they all make the assumption that we are all motivated to make as much money in every given situation as possible.
 Yet we all know that this is not everybody's motive for playing. Some people play for social reasons. Some for the competition. The option for not paying for an extra buy in for some people might be to play the tables in a casino.

Hmmmm what value there.

Having said that, I feel the need to explain what I mean by this.....


That's not to say you have a 2% chance of winning the comp.

To clarify imagine a relatively simple payout structure where the top 2 pay on a 75%/25% structure.

At no point in the tournament will it be possible to have over 75% equity in the prizepool. (That's the most you can win)

If, at some point, you think there's a 10% chance of you finishing 1st, and a 10% chance of finishing 2nd. Your equity in the prize pool is 10% (7.5% + 2.5%)
If, at some point, you think there's a 5% chance of you finishing 1st, and a 10% chance of finishing 2nd. Your equity in the prize pool is 6.25% (3.75% + 2.5%)


I estimate the chance I'll parlay my one re-buy into a decent stack, and the chance I'll turn this decent stack into a cash finish. (to simplify things, at that that stage of the tournament, I'll assume my chances of finishing in each position is equal.)

So If I think I'll get a decent stack from my re-buy one time out of five, and I'll turn that decent stack into a cash finish one time out of 2, that makes my chance of cashing one in ten (or 10%).

So if we pay five prizes, I'll assume my equity in the prize pool is 2%, and go from there.



Obviously sometimes the chance of making a decent stack from one re-buy will be greater than one in five. I'll mostly consider the average stack when estimating this.

Similarly, the chance of cashing from a decent stack will not always be one in two. I'll mostly consider the number of players left when estimating this.

It's probably not that bad to assume it's always worth it. However, I prefer to make desicions concerning my purse strings with a certain degree of logic (or at least attempted logic), rather than faith that the value will always be there.

I always re-buy providing I have the cash.

I rarely top-up if I'm not increasing my stack my 20% or more. I also consider the average stack at the table and the potential damage to the the bigger stacks. If the extra chips will give me a little extra 'folding equity' against the big stacks then I will usually re-buy.

This is pretty much what I follow (from the 2+2 MTT anthology)

Even though I'll probably always re-buy too (assuming I have da cash) I enjoy thinking along the above lines.

It's half the fun for me....coz I'm odd.

i won't argue with the odd part :)

you raise a fair point. For me though the prizepool is less important when considering it.\If I get 1k chips and average chips are 10k I don't see the point.
My Rebuy/topup MUST be able to hurt the other players at my table, otherwise I have very little option.

Also one thing to consider, size of the blinds. A rebuy + topup has to give you a fair shot at playing..I like to get atleast 20x BB for my topup and rebuy. (assuming I am down to 0)

I also have top be playing well...If I'm not I don't rebuy.