You may be right. If you want to win the Powerball jackpot, you do increase your chances by buying more than one ticket. However, there is mathematically no difference between buying 10 Powerball tickets for this weekÂ’s drawing and skipping the next nine versus buying one ticket for each of the next ten.

Similarly, three buyins for THIS touenament will give you a better chance to win this particular one, but one rebuy each for the next three gives you the same chance to win SOME tournament. Obviously, three buyins for all three gives you an even better chance, but just like in the Powerball case, multiple entries will make your actual payout odds lower.

I wouldnÂ’t dream of telling anyone NOT to rebuy if thatÂ’s what they want to do. But mathematically it isnÂ’t really an advantage. For example there was a tournament that was run by an unlicensed company that I played. Initial entry was free, there were $10
rebuys during the rebuy period and it was winner take all for $300. They usually drew about 60 entries and as you can imagine the play was wily aggressive with lots of rebuys (IÂ’m pretty sure they never had a problem with making a profit even with the free first entry.)

Suppose in this tournament you are about average skill wise. Suppose there is an average of two rebuys per player. If you only play your free entry, you will win with about a 1/180 probability for an expected value of 300/180 or about $1.67. Your expected profit in this case is the same since you paid nothing. With one rebuy your chance of winning is 1-(179/180)^2 or about 0.01108. Your expected payout is $3.32 so your expected profit is -$6.68. In general your expected profit is 1-(179/180)^(n+1) - 10n. Your winning chances increase with each buyin, but the amount you paid also increases. Multiple buyins actually are harmful for this particular case.

Obviously for real tourneys itÂ’s more complex. I obviously chose that example for simplicity. In real tourneys we donÂ’t have winner take all formats and equal skill levels. ItÂ’s entirely possible that multiple buyins could make it more profitable. However that is obviously true only to a point. The first place payout will be some multiple of the buyin. Any buyins exceeding that multiple will guarantee a loss even if you go on to win first place. The math is more complicated though, so I would not rule out the possibility of some optimal non-zero number of rebuys. Again, though, figuring that out (and making sure youÂ’re bankrolled to handle them) is part of the skill involved with such tournaments

The reason I rebuy at tournaments is because I am over 2 hours away from casinos and I want to play in as many tournaments as I can. I love tournaments. When I get knocked out early I always rebuy. Sometimes I rebuy late if the field is not great.

I have bought back in to $1,700 WSOP Circuit main events and I did cash one time on my 2nd buy in.

The other tourneys on the WSOP circuit are $400 or $600 so I'm game for rebuys.

You can't be more wrong here. In order to win money playing tournaments you have to play in a lot of them. Twice I have gone over a year without more than min cashing because I don't play in a lot of tournaments because I don't live near a casino.

Because of my living situation I play in roughly 70 tournaments a year. When I lived in Prague I played in about 110 tournaments (including EPT) that year specifically because I was 20 minutes away from the casinos. I won 2 of them (with trophies) and finished 3rd twice and 4th once (8th and 9th as well).

The reason why I play in tournaments is to win money and trophies. I could care less about min cashing. ICM only matters to me when I am at a final table but then it does change things.

The other thing you are wrong about is limiting clowns to 2 entries. Clowns are a gift to the rest of us.

I am willing to buy in multiple times but it is not so I can do what you are talking about. It's so I can catch the clowns doing it.

Today in the Baltimore 6-max $600 tournament I was down to 3500 chips (we started with 25,000). So I went all in with a hand and got called and doubled up. I don't remember how i got back to like 17,000 chips but i did. And then I raised with AQo and was called by a blind who had just sat down at the table. Flop was something like A77 he checked and I checked. Turn was a 5 he led out for like 4,000 and I called. River was whatever and he jammed. I insta called and he had J2o. He was replaced by a woman who had bought back in. A little while later I raised with QJo. She called in the SB and BB called. Flop was Q52r check check I bet like 3,000 she called. Turn was a 8 check check. River was a 9. She jammed and I insta called. She had A3o not JT which I blocked and would never have called a flop bet with, and I was at 63,000 chips. Now I did bounce out in 27th of 102 players when I couldn't hit a hand. But OMG playing against people who are constantly overbluffing is like a gift. I am happy to get it in with >50% chance and more than doubling up repeatedly. Not to take into consideration the river bluffs which are all because they want to increase their stacks by like 30% to 50% if their river bluff works. And if it doesn't they will have a starting stack so no big deal to them.

It is true that it has taken me a while to understand how to function in WSOP Circuit events. But now I basically double my stack early in every tournament I buy in. I am hoping I will go deep again.

Thanks!

I would never have folded specifically because its the WSOP circuit and this was an overbluff spot. I do play a lot of AXs hands in that spot. But in the WSOP circuit when he checked a 4 way AJx flop he was basically saying he had no A. Especially because KQ/KT/QT could win with a gutter, but might fold to a 60% pot bet. Also as a SB my turn lead out could have been a gutter. It could have been any PP. It could have been nothing but a bluff because the flop checked through and I was the only player who had acted ahead of the original raiser. So he really should have called or folded. The other thing is had he bet the flop and I just called he could jam the turn and if I had an AXs hand I would consider folding (I wouldn't have because I refuse to fold and have them show me KJ or 77 and then I would be tilted for the rest of the day). Here it wouldn't have mattered because I have to call an under-repped hand like I had and if he has AK or AJ or A9 so be it.

Fair enough. I don't want to disrail the thread but I think it would work against some players.

It used to work against me. Every time...

I just looked online, the last one of these types of tournaments I played was a 300 entry with a 100k guarantee and was a one day tournament. Prize pool was 160k, so it here were at least 550 players. IMO, surviving on one bullet is impossible given the structure and play.

I believe the 800 tournament referenced earlier was in Miami and had a cool million guaranteed.

These are not $10 rebuy tournaments or analogous to the statistical insignificance of purchasing a second lotto ticket.

Again. My point to OP is you can vote with your feet and not play these structures. I think there are more people that like the gambling aspect of these structures than do not so they may be giving the people what they want.

Striaghtforward question: Do you think a good MTT player has a 1 in 550 chance of winning that event? If not, why not?

I think the obvious answer is yes but it’s a dumb question. If there are bad players, a good MTT player should have better odds than 1-550 of winning the event. These tournaments aren’t based on randomness.

Stremba seems to imply value judgments of good or bad to the play of the rebuy players. I am not, I think they are playing a correct strategy by firing multiple bullets on multiple days as the tournament structure and payouts incentivize such play. In my experience, the players firing the multiple bullets are “pro” players who follow a regional series traveling across the country.

You can also just run/play good and make a deep run on one bullet. It's not impossible. It's always going to be a long shot to win a tournament with hundreds or thousands of runners, even if you're firing multiple times.

I've taken a single shot before at a major main event with about 1, 800 entries (it was above my bankroll requirements, but not so much so that I couldn't justify taking a shot) and still managed to make the final two tables.

Honestly I think the blind structure is more important than whether or not rebuys are allowed. A slow, good blind structure like many main events tend to have will reward good play whereas turbo structures force you to gamble.

I’m not saying that rebuying is bad or good. I’m saying that the play style, the hyper aggressiveness, basically just gambling in marginal spots is suboptimal. If it isn’t, then why is it that we aren’t playing that style whether or not we intend to rebuy? Why aren’t ALL players playing that way?

Rebuying in and of itself is irrelevant. What is the difference between firing three bullets at THIS tournament and firing one bullet at this one, then one more each at two future tournaments? There is no difference mathematically.

I agree with your points. Normally a higher buy in tournament has a better blind structure but these newer main events with large guarantees are not following the old model.

I am not claiming itÂ’s impossible to go deep or win on one bullet. if you look at the tournaments with 4 day ones and day two you are in or close to the money they are structured to dump everyone out in the last two hours of play after the rebuys end so that they replay day 1 b, c, d. One tournament with a 1;000 entry gave you 2,500 if you bagged twice for day two and more if you bagged 3;4 times, So what they are basically doing is marketing the lower buy in to incentivize players to rebuy and build the prize pool. These incentives with a turbo structure at the end of the day ones make it near impossible to survive all the coin flips that occur. Again, it may be giving the people what they want and it may bring in less skilled players at the lower price point, itÂ’s just not what I want.

If I want to gamble every minute, I will play craps, not tournament poker.

A good player with 4 bullets will have a better RIO in these tournaments than a player of equal skill with one bullet.

The difference is that not all tournaments employ the loss leader of a low buy in to attract players and have this type of structure.

The structure and play style make you take these gambling risks in order to keep up. I would argue that all the players do end up playing hyperaggressive style whether they want to or not which is why you need extra bullets.

Cliffs notes: Broadly speaking, Stremba is correct; OP and jjjou are wrong.

Not true.

Also not true. They will win more often because they are putting in more volume. Their ROI will not be higher.

If you are changing to suboptimal strategies to counter players who gamble too much, that's on you, not on the tournament structure.

Either they're adapting correctly— which may be possible, given that in the early stages with a starting stack and re-entries, you should be playing close to chipEV and being more willing to accept the variance of that— or they're adapting incorrectly, and in a way that makes for big pots and big mistakes, which are mistakes you can take advantage of.

Okay, so it sounds like when you can rebuy easily, you either play suboptimally, or you play closer to optimally aggressive because you aren't afraid to bust.

Again, I don't see how this is a problem with other people or the structure. This is about how you adjust, and the adjustments you do or don't want to make. With unlimited rebuys, you either play suboptimally and think other people do as well— in which case, stop doing that and start taking advantage of their mistakes— or you play closer to an optimal style with aggression and bluffing— in which case, start playing properly on one bullet.

To be blunt, it sounds like you want tournaments to be one way, but they're the other way.

Yes!

In other words,

This thread fundamentally started with an OP that amounted to "I can't beat these re-entry tournaments because I get in 70/30s and lose." Well, you can't beat any tournament if you lose your 70/30s.

The goal of poker is to make the best decision possible at every decision point. That does not change no matter how the other players at your table are playing, although what the best decision is may change depending on how they are playing and the best way to exploit them.

The fundamental complaint here seems to be "These players are playing a strategy that forces me to either play big pots early or fold tons of equity to avoid that, and I don't want to do either of those."

Well, tournaments are a very high-variance form of poker, so you need to embrace (or at least get used to) the variance if you want to play them long term. And certainly other players are under no obligation to play in a style that makes things easier and less stressful on you.

Ok forget rebuys for a minute. Suppose it’s a freezeout, but you don’t have time to play it. You have a friend who enters and offers to sell you half of his action before it starts for half the buyin. Since your friend is of average skill, this is a fair deal, but you decide against it.

You watch for the first six levels. Your friend has exactly the starting stack at the end of level 6. So instead of say 200bb, his stack is 40bb, and there are naturally many players with bigger stacks. He again offers you half his action for half the buyin. Is this a fair deal? If not, is half his action worth more or less than half the buy in?

nath is right, but another way to think of it, what do you think the good player's ROI is on their first bullet? How could the second bullet have greater ROI than the first bullet? The third bullet have greater ROI than the fourth? Etc.

The existence of other bullets doesn't increase the ROI of another buyin. It can't.

If the Venetian runs $600 single days Mon-Thu next week, do you think the ROI of a player who can only play Thu of the single day series is different than the ROI of a player of equal ability who can play each of the single days?

If no, why is the answer different if it runs $600 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D Monday-Thursday next week?

People treat re-entries like old rebuys, but a re-entry is mathematically the same as buying into an entirely separate tournament.

If he's an average player, half his action is likely still worth less than half a buyin (due to rake).

However, I think I know what you were getting at. Half of his action at the end of level 6 is worth MORE than half of his action at the start of the tournament. This is counterintuitive. His stack is now smaller in comparison to the average stack, so most people would think it is worth less. That's not the case though. Assuming a number of players have already been eliminated, the ICM value of a starting stack has gone up.

I’m glad there’s been discussion, but it’s not really been helpful to me personally.

The ‘mathematically the same’ people - I wonder if they ever played one of these tournaments.

V1 opens, V2 3bets, and I jam with JJ
IDK if it’s plus EV and I don’t care because ‘re-entry’ - one bullet I don’t make that play.

It’s a game of aggression and I just can’t accept that they have no advantage - no matter what ‘math’ people say. It’s too obvious

I left 30 minutes before the end of late registration: 950 entered, less than 400 left at level 9 —- I don’t know what that means, but it’s different than the past. I never remember half the field being gone before the end of registration.

I’m not gonna stop playing them, I love it.
I was looking for strategy adjustments and all I got was ‘it doesn’t matter’

It’s ok
I’m used to nobody cares, do better

I’ll pose my question again: you have a friend who offers you half his action in a tourney before it starts. He will sell it for half the buy in. Since he is an average player, this is a fair deal for both of you.

You refuse and he offers again at the end of level 6. He has exactly the starting stack at this point, which in bb terms has declined from 200 to 40. In addition, instead of being even with all the other players, ther is now a mix of large and short stacks. He wants to still sell his action for half the buy in. Is this a fair deal? If not, should you pay more or less than half the buy in for half his action at this point?

If someone is making plays that they don’t know and don’t care if they are +EV just because they can re-enter they are either a bad player or they are playing bad.

In the old rebuy tourneys where you didn’t pay rake again and you kept your same seat, there was some benefit to ramming and jamming bc the subsequent chips were cheaper and they stayed on your table so if you were a better player, having lots of your chips at your table was beneficial.

Now, you’re paying rake again and moving seats. There is no “added EV” to being able to re-enter. If I’m playing a $400 freezeout at Venetian I don’t gain EV just bc if I bust there is a $400 freezeout that started at Wynn at the same time that I can go late reg. The exact same holds true if I’m re-entering the $400 at V instead.

Here is the structure of an 1,100 entry in Chicago in April by the MSPT

Registration Closes Start of Level 13
Buy-in: $1,110 ($970 prize pool + $140
administration fee).

30,000 starting stack. They play down to 11%, which is in the money for day two.

11 1,500 2,500 2,500
12 2,000 3,000 3,000

13 2,000 4,000 4,000
14 3,000 5,000 5,000
15 3,000 6,000 6,000
16 4,000 8,000 8,000
17 5,000 10,000 10,000
18 6,000 12,000 12,000

So 100 players play down to 11, they usually hit level 16 or 17 to end day one. What specific, non suboptimal plays, do you guys recommend here with a 10-15 M stack with 20 players remaining at three shorthanded tables?

I’m not arguing either way, but if that’s the case, then the way to deal with the fact that there are people playing hyper aggressively due to rebuts would be to wait and late register if you only are planning to buy in once. OP, if you are only willing or able to buy in once, that might well be your best strategic adjustment.

Had you said that the starting stack at the end of level 6 (or some other arbitrarily chosen level) is worth less than starting stack, then that would be evidence that gambling, busting and rebuying is less advantageous than simply playing a different tourney from the start with the second buy in.

Mathematically that's correct (max late registering makes sense) if ROI is your only concern. However, the problem with that strategy is it often leads to quick bustouts as you're entering as a short stack. Usually people buying in one time are placing entertainment value on the early levels where you can play for several hours with a relatively deep stack.

The ICM value of a starting stack goes up when you late register, but the gains are modest (likely under 10% gain to the starting value of your stack). What ends up happening is you end up compressing the entire first seven levels into a coin flip type situation in the first level or so after you late register. You will bust quickly quite often, but if you win those first few high variance encounters then you will be in a good position going forward in the tournament.

Would villain call K7 if he couldn't rebuy Almost certainly less often. Re-entry changes behaviour because: busting early has lower penalty, chips early are worth less in real money terms, players widen ranges. That part is real. But here's the important truth: loose re-entry players increase variance, not necessarily your negative EV. If someone stacks off with K7 vs QQ preflop, that is a massive gift to you long term.
In a re-entry event: players who bust can convert more money into more attempts, the prize pool increases, the average field gets softer early because people gamble more.
Your edge per bullet doesn't change. If you are a 20% ROI player in freezeouts, you're still a 20% player in a re-entry per entry, assuming similar field strength. What changes is variance.
The math of re-entry: buy in 300, you have 20% ROI, EV pet entry +$60. If a wealthy player fires 5 bullets, their total EV is 5 x their per entry ROI, they are not buying an advantage. They are buying more variance and more volume. Your disadvantage is not structural, it's psychological. A 900 field with 400 still playing, that's normal for re-entry events, it doesn't mean 500 rich maniacs, it means many people fired 2 bullets, some fired 3, very few fired 6+
Re-entry players busting multiple times are often weaker players. Stronger players bust less frequently.
The only real mathematical disadvantage of being single bullet in re-entry. You can not take thin high variance early spots that are slightly +EV.
E.g if a marginal flip is $5 in EV but high variance, a multi bullet player might take it. You might pass, but here's the truth, good tournament strategy already avoids thin gambles early because, survival has future value and ICM later matters. So the practical disadvantage is small unless you are at a very high buy ins with elite fields.
What he do that in freezeouts, maybe not, but that's good for you.
K7o vs QQ is about 30% equity preflop, you want that call every time, if he punting because he can rebuy, your long term ROI goes up
Does unlimited money increase EV, only through, increased volume, reduced fear and better mental game, it does not magically change hand equities, the cards don't care who can rebuy. You saying " wading through rich people that enjoy breaking people like me" that's your mind protecting you from pain. What's really happening is: you got unlucky, it hurts, your brain is looking for a structural reason, there maybe ego at the table, but there is not a conspiracy. When you should avoid re-entry, you tilt after bad beats, you feel bankroll pressure from one bullet, you cannot emotionally detach from busting, because then your EV drops, but not because others have more money
Here's a practical strategy adjustment for single bullet, if you're a single entry in a re-entry event: play slightly tighter early, avoid marginal 40-55% spots, let multi entry players torch stacks, preserve your mental clarity. Later in the event, everyone is single bullet anyway. That's when skill dominates.

These are the kind of ideas I’m looking for. I must have come off like I’m crying about it, but I’m really accepting this reality & trying to figure out how to navigate it better.

I might try this a few times