Suppose you play regularly in a small local rebuy tournament league. Say there are 20 tourneys per year. Is there a formula you could use to figure out the maximum number of rebuys on average you should allow yourself to be profitable, given certain assumptions about ITM% and average payouts for cashing?


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If you expect to get paid more than the buyin at any point if you bust out, you should always rebuy. I mean suppose a $10 buyin and an expected payout of $20. Even if you have busted out 6x, you would still expect to be paid $20 for the next $10 you put in, so this would be +ev ALWAYS...

I'm not sure I follow. If you expect a return of $20 due to the payout structure and your estimated ROI, but you bust out and rebuy 6 times for $10 each, then you've lost money.

But I guess the point is that if you estimate your average return based on skill level and past results, you should willing to rebuy as many times as possible up to the point that you hit your estimated return. Right?

So if I play in a league with $100 buyins and $60 rebuy units, and I estimate an average finish of 5th for $220 let's say, then I should be willing to rebuy a max of twice?

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The point is that the 6 buyins are lost already and should not matter in the decision whether to rebuy a 7th time: only the expected return on the additional buy in matters. Google "sunk cost fallacy" if you wish more explanation.

I'm familiar with the concept but wouldn't it be smart before playing any rebuy to have a plan for your rebuy limit? Otherwise you would be willing to rebuy an infinite number of times because the past rebuys are all sunk costs and all that matters is whether you expect a return on your next rebuy. That doesn't make sense to me.

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But that means you should not have entered in the first place. I don't play that many rebuys, but I'd rather stop rebuying based on blind levels. Very likely a rebuy becomes a bad idea if you only get 20bb in chips if everybody else is on 50+bb, but then your expected return is also negative so the concept still holds ;-)

This. If you think your EV is lower when lets say you have only 18bb then probably it doesn't make sense to rebuy, you better off to open a new tournament and get 150bb.
But if lets say you bust at the very first hand you play then yeah ofcourse always rebuy since what is the difference between open a new tournament or rebuy at this one? And if you bust 10 times in a row at the very first hand then rebuy 10 times.

Not sure I follow your logic that it is better to a limit for rebuys.. the only limit is your bankroll i.e. ofc course it should be bigger than for regular tournaments

"Otherwise you would be willing to rebuy an infinite number of times"
You should not be "willing" or unwilling. While playing i don't u really need to think about this, it should not influence your decision in a hand.
Well it may influence in particular situations but againt this relates more to blinds level, bubble etc

Of course as the number of times we bust out approaches infinity we might have to reexamine the assumption that we have an edge on the field

Keep in mind I'm not talking about large online MTTs where the prize pool is sufficiently large to justify endless rebuys. This is a small local tourney league where the rebuy cost represents a relatively large % of the potential prize money. Some of the guys in the league like to gamble it up during the 1 hour rebuy period and can occasionally rebuy 3 or 4 times. I know it isn't profitable in these tourneys to do that too often, but I don't know the math to work it out. That's what sparked my question.

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I'm with DutchCourage on this one - as long as the field is soft and the blinds are deep enough, I'm keeping on putting bullets in. Obviously you have to be bankrolled enough to keep taking shots if you have a bad night and keep losing flips etc.

Maybe I'm thinking about it the wrong way then.

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Just a simplified example to clarify the point: I offer you 10 coin flips, heads you get $2, tails you pay $1. You can stop at any point. Miraculously, you lose the first 5 flips. Would you stop the game?

I don't think this is quite analogous but I see your point. Assuming I'm bankrolled sufficiently and can absorb a large number of attempts, I should be willing to keep flipping no matter how many I've lost.

However, realistically speaking I'm not sufficiently bankrolled to absorb a large number of $60 rebuys. But I play in the league because I feel I have enough of a skill edge that I can minimize my rebuy costs and play within the limited bankroll (which has been the case).

This question arose because I go into each tournament with a rule of allowing myself one rebuy and that's it. Part of the reason I do that is because the structure of the tournament is such that the benefit of gambling for early doubles isn't worth the cost of multiple rebuys. These aren't large field tourneys where you have to accumulate as many chips as possible during the rebuy period to have any real hope of going deep. These games play more like STTs.

I suppose theoretically my rule doesn't make sense. I should be willing to rebuy as many times as necessary. But it hasn't been a problem - I have never needed more than one rebuy.

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