Is there a point to buying an add on if you're chip leader or even middle of the pack? If you have say 30+ BBs and an add on is only 2-5 BBs at the current level, wouldn't you be better off saving that money? As blinds go up, eventually that add on is only 2 or less BBs. I could see the merit for a shorter stack or maybe a mid stack, but if you are still in the top 10% of the field an add on seems to be pointless. I don't play many tournaments so I am just looking for clarity on this subject since most of the bigger prize pool events have rebuy and add on up to end of late reg

I think in general it is always smart to take the add on since chips are your ammo to apply pressure in tournaments and the more chips the better, also the large majority of the field will be taking the add on and you want to continue having an x amount advantage over everyone

depends also on your table and seat. if you have a bad seat you might be doomed in the tournament anyway. so then dont rebuy or addon.

except for some really extreme scenarios, you should always addon, that's it. As a beginner, you should ignore those extreme scenarios (since they are unlikely to happen) and simply addon every time.

If rebuys only replenish 10 ish bbs don't do it, it will increase variance

Sent from my ASUS_Z00VD using Tapatalk

I'm sure there will be a formula somewhere accounting fo rthe value of each chip. Given ICM implications often mean chips become less valuable the more of them you have. I would Imagine most add on's to be -EV.

Say for instance you didn't rebuy and have a stack of 22k. An add on might add 7k chips but doubles your investment. Will those extra 7k chips double your expected return? Doubt it.

OP is an interesting question.

an addon and a rebuy are two different situations.

I look at it like this:

The add-on is just part of the tournament cost. If the entry fee is x with an add-on of y, my buy-in is x+y. It's been a long time since I made that decision during a tournament, since now once I sit down I've already factored it into the cost.

Can you win without the add-on? Yes. When I was starting out with live poker I didn't have much of a bankroll so I decided not to spend the extra money for an add-on. I won the tournament, winning heads-up against another guy who didn't get the add-on.

Even so, I don't recommend doing that. First, because now I always play within my bankroll. Second, if I have fewer chips than my opponents, I'm bringing a knife to a gunfight.

Yeah at some point it has no value to buy the add on and actually costs money. When you´re under or at average stack doing the add on is never a bad thing, regardless of how many BBs that stack would be. The add on is not worth less because it is "only" a few BB.

There is one tournament situation where a few extra big blinds can make a big difference. When everyone is getting short, a lot of all-in decisions are based at least partly on who has who covered. If my M is 9, Joe's is 7 and Sally's is 5, Joe might be more likely to shove against Sally than he would against me.

This is how I thought about it.

I've never really thought about this, because the catch-all phrase "always take the add-on" got into my brain many years ago, but given the ICM effects, it might be the case that there's a Nash equilibrium where it's +EV for about half (?) the field to take the add on, but it's minus EV for the other half. The problem is, people don't act rationally or have perfect information on what the rest of the field intends to do. As soon as some people that shouldn't take the add on start taking the add-on, I think that means that some others that shouldn't have taken the add on should now take the add-on and possibly that some that should have taken the add-on should now reject it.
As it's kind of like an arm's race, it's possibly the case that the GTO/unexploitable play is to always take the add on, even if it leads to mutually assured destruction of everyone's bankrolls. Unreg pre imo.

I don’t recall ever seeing a math analysis on the value of add-on. I will attempt an initial analysis using a 10-man sit’n’go, which is not an add-on game but perhaps can offer some insight. Assume the prize structure is the typical 50%, 30%, 20%. If the buy-in is 9+1, the total prize pool is 90. With equal player capability, ICM tells us a player will be in the top three 30% of the time, 10% each for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd earning $9 on average, so his EV is -1, the fee or rake.

Now assume a player can do an initial add-on and invest another 9 thereby doubling his initial stack, and this 9 is added to the prize pool. To make this a good investment, his EV should be at least 0. However, ICM tells us it is -2.26, lower than with no add-on, so the add-on is not a good investment. The ICM model I have allows one to assign a capability index to players. For this example, the additional investment of 9 that was made has higher EV than with no add-on only if the player was much better than the remaining players. Better is defined by multiplying a player's actual stack size by a factor exceeding 1.0 and doing the ICM analysis with that adjusted stack size. In this case, the factor was 1.38


While admittingly this is somewhat of an analytical stretch for evaluating add-ons for MTTs it does support the idea that the relationship between $add-on and EV is complex and suggests add-on is probably more advantageous for better players rather than poorer ones.