Hi, I'm new here, so I apologize if this has been covered, but I couldn't find it using the search function. If there is an old thread on this topic, someone please point me to it.

I'm never quite sure how to handle rebuys and add-ons, and I'm wondering if anyone has ever done the math.

I play on WSOP.com (I live in Las Vegas, lucky me), and most of their tournaments are R/As. Usually you can rebuy the starting stack for the initial buy-in or double the starting stack for double the initial buy-in, and at the end of the rebuy period, there is an add-on available that is generally double the starting stack for the cost of the initial buy-in.

My question is: when, aside from going bust, is it worthwhile to rebuy and/or add on, just to increase the size of your stack? I have Googled around about this and the conventional wisdom seems to be that you should always add on, but this doesn't feel right to me.

I guess my issue is that I feel that the majority of my initial buy-in is buying my SEAT, not my CHIPS. Why, then, would I pay the same amount of money for just CHIPS when I still have a SEAT? If you are going to lose your seat (i.e. you've busted out), I get rebuying in that instance, but why rebuy or add-on if you haven't gone bust, when chips are freely available by winning pots?

Obviously it's always preferable to have more chips, and sometimes more preferable than others (table full of fish, etc.), but if you enter a $10 tournament, rebuy, then add on, you can cash and you barely turn a profit. It seems like it's not worth it and you'd be better off just sticking with your initial investment unless you go bust early and feel you're still +EV.

I am going off the assumption that I am missing something basic, so someone please clue me in. Thanks. =)

The goal in a R+A tournament is to buy your chips as cheap as possible, and for that reason you should always purchase the add-on. This is simply a question of math. Lets say you get to the add-on break with 3 times the starting stack in a 10$ MTT. For sake of simplicity we can say, that your EV in the tournament, that is the amount of money, you stand to win on average, is 30$. However when other players purchase the add-on, and you dont, your EV will drop, because the amount of chips in play increase more than the price pool. So maybe your EV is now only 25$. But if you purchase the add-on chips, your EV is going to be 41$. So for 10$ you have increased your EV by 16$, which is quite obviously a very good deal. In fact its the easiest and most bulletproff edge you can find anywhere in poker.

As for rebuying, its a more complex question. Rebuying in itself dont add any value, so the goal is mostly to avoid it. But if it can bring you to the add-on, it might be worth it. It can also be worth rebuying, if it will give you a more playable stack, and/or mean, you get to play deeper against some really weak opponents, especially if they are to your right. R+A tournaments are a bit like cash games in the sense, that you can do a bit of table selection. If your table is really poor, then dont rebuy, but if its good, then put as many chips as possible on that table. But in general its certainly not the goal to rebuy 5 times in a R+A, and it can be fine to set up some rules, like for instance a maximum 2 rebuys, as a form of bankroll management. Finally if late registration last right up to the add-on break, its a very valid strategy to register in the absolute last moment, fold a single hand, and then purchase the add-on. In that way you give up any skill edge, you might have in the rebuy phase, but you make sure, that you always buy your chips as cheaply as possible, and you spend less time on each tournament.

Thank you, that cleared up a lot of misconceptions for me.

Ive always bought the addon but have wondered if there is a stack size where its not worth it.

I play on Global a lot and they do a lot of rebuy MTTs and satties. The standard one is 2k starting stack, 2k rebuy if you bust, and then a 3k addon. Obv if you have 2k-3k then the addon is a slam dunk because you are doubling your stack for an extra buy in.

But what if you have done really well and ran it up to 20k early. Then you are paying to only increase by 20%. I still think its worth it because those extra chips compound later on if you make a deep run but there is still diminishing returns on the value of the addon as you stack goes up.

If you already have a large portion of the total chips in the tournament, then an add-on might not be worth it. This is because, you can only cash once, so at some point the value of extra chips becomes very small. If as an extreme example you have 90% of all chips, you are already 90% sure to win the tournament, so adding more chips will have very little value. In reality however such a situation will never excist during the add-on break, since its still early in the tournament. If you already have a massive stack, then adding on wont significantly increase your EV measured in percent, but it will still increase your EV in dollars, and thats all, we should ever care about in poker. If for instance adding on for 10$ increase your EV from 100$ to 114$, thats still a very profitable move, and there is no logical reason to not do it.

The other factor with being a big stack is, if you don't add-on and everyone else does, it costs you a decent bit of equity. (There's an example in Endgame Poker Strategy that breaks down the math behind this.) So while it may not benefit you as much to add on, if everyone else is and you aren't, it hurts you more not to add on than you lose in add-on value compared to everyone else.

Lets say you bust out just before the rebuy period ends, how do you decide if it that point its still worth re-buying(ie starting relative to the stacks already playing)? The game I usually play is odd and has no add-on.

If the add-on break is imminent, say within 3-4 minutes, it is always going to be +EV to rebuy (but not dubble rebuy) and then add-on after folding a few hands. You will be a below average stack, but the ICM value of your stack will be more, than you paid for it. Not including the original entry or previous rebuys, but those money are already gone, so they dont matter. If its like 10 minutes to the add-on break, and a starting stack is now very short, I will often tend to give up. Rebuying to have like 5BB is often just a way to burn a lot of money quickly by making multible rebuys and losing multible all-ins without fold equity.

What about taking add on at the start of the tournament? Have seen a lot of that live.

Thats always plus EV especially when the add ons for these often cost much less than the tourney buy in. Its often a "dealer appreciation" or something of that nature.