Quote:
Originally Posted by joeschmoe
Why are you harping on the cost aspect and ignoring the unfairness of personal wealth affecting an honest competition?
There is no reason this thinking shouldn't apply just as much to a non-rebuy tournament.
Say we have a $10,000 entry tournament.
Player A is a super wealthy businessman who doesn't care about making money at all. As a result, he plays sharp, aggressive poker, not letting the thought of getting knocked out bother him at all.
Player B is Tom Dwan, who is getting paid to show up at the tournament in the first place and is more interested in the open faced Chinese game upstairs for $100,000 a point. He's shoving all in every other hand because quite frankly he doesn't even want to be playing.
Player C got in on a satellite using his last $80 and the mob is going to kill him next week if he can't win the money to pay them back. He's scared as balls every time he's in a pot.
Player D is the greatest poker player in the history of the world, but he makes so much money doing other stuff that he doesn't even bother to play.
Player E is a sharp online pro who crushes every single day, but his life expenses keep him pinned down so much he can't even get the money to play the tournament.
Each players situation and personal wealth massively impacts how they play in the tournament, to the point where it's probably the single most important factor on their play in these cases.
That's just not fair, right? Because "the unfairness of personal wealth is affecting the competition?"
Sorry bro, you want something (a truly equal field unaffected by the buy in or prize structure) that doesn't exist, rebuy tournament or not.
Quote:
Originally Posted by joeschmoe
But I'm not focused on winning. How the number of "entries" affects my chances is not my concern. I play to exercise my poker skills, have fun, etc, etc, and maybe cash if I'm running good. That's all I can reasonably expect.
Rebuys change the game.
You can't tell how someone will play later by their earlier, rebuy period play. So, whatever effort is expended in learning your opponents tendencies and quirks is squandered. All-in is often meaningless. Betting 10, 30, 50% of a visible stack means nothing when some unknown part of the stack may be hidden in their pocket.
Of course rebuys change the game. That's the entire damn point of having rebuys. It changes the strategy. This is going to blow your mind, but there are also kinds of poker that change the strategy by giving all the players two extra cards, or giving players their own board instead of community cards, or forcing you to hold your hand face up on your forehead. There are variants where you can only buy in once, or only twice, or add chips in the middle, or rebuy as much as you want. There are tournaments for millions of dollars, or for wal mart gift cards, and everywhere in between. All this stuff changes strategy, and each has its own charm and plays differently than the others.
You'll like some of these variants more than others. A format you hate might be someone else's favorite. That's okay. You can choose the ones you want to play in. No one is going to water board you if you choose not to go to one particular tournament.