One of my local card room is using a very aggressive promotion rule:

Every day, first buy-in to the tourney is free, the Tourney has a good size guarantee.

the card room have to make money of course, so the tournament have unlimited rebuys and add-ons (each has a 10% rake)

On my observation,25% of the time, the tournament pay the guarantee,
75% of the time, the tournament pays exceed the guarantee

Now, should I rebuy? should I add-on?

Because each person who showed up at the card room have 10k free-chip, the chips are not directly related to prize pool.

Currently, I play this game daily, and I rarely rebuys (only on tilt), and I only add-on if it help my chip stack a lot (say addon is 20k, and I have 12k chip,then i do the add-on)

Because other ppl rebuy and I dont, I m always nursing short stack
but on the other hand, because I have no money put in, I m doing free-rolls.

The tournament pay 10% of the field (8-10 ppl usually) top 3 places "have to" pay 20% in tips to dealers.

I cant tell how many times in normal rebuy tournaments, I put in 4 bullet and my final pay out is 2.5 bullet

average attendance to this tourney is 80-150 ppl, (about 80-150 free bullet)
each rebuy, addon is 200+20 for 10k/20k in chip
average prize pool is 20k-40k (about 100-200 paid bullet)

How do I evaluate the situation, and make a dynamic decision on whether should I rebuy/add-on

May sound like a complex topic but at the end of the day it comes down to the simple question if rebuying/adding on is +EV for you or not.

If there are 99 high stakes pros and you, it’s probably not a good idea to rebuy. If there are 99 randomizing chimpanzees and you, rebuying as often as necessary should be best.

Each buy in is independent from the other so it doesn't matter if you freerolled the first one. If you're profitable against the field then rebuy every single time.

If you think you have an edge you should rebuy, but if not you should take the freeroll

Or if you get knocked out earlier than you like you can just fire another bullet and enjoy some cards

Good stuff so far ...
1) Structure ... current Level ... players left
2) Skill 'advantage'
3) 20% rake at the top is HUGE!
4) Tournaments with overlays are nice!!

These 'build a stack' tournaments are becoming more popular but I'm not a good person to comment on 'daily' tournaments since typically they are impossible to show long term results within ... they are time killers for the players and butt in seat producers for the room. GL

Thanks for all the posts

and yes these games are time killers, not sure about long turn result.
And the structure is 30 mins blind before add-on period
20 mins per level after add-ons


it is "daily tourney", but you have to play from 4pm to 1am to make the money and to 2-3am if you acutally win

for first free bullets, most player take flips early in order to build big chip stacks, and they repeatly rebuys. during the first part of the tourney, I am often doing well.

Due to the card room often change its daily tourney, not sure about my long term result, played 20 times, win once, once 5th place, and I fired 4 paid bullets in total

the problem is when the freeze-out started, ppl start to play tight and bling goes up quicker, it is hard to say if I have edge after the add-on period,because I know I need to become loose aggressive at some point but I am not good from switching styles

1) This is not a 'daily' to me. Dailies are set up for 3-4 hours max. 6 hours to cash makes it look like there is plenty of room to maneuver.

2) This is an excellent short term result .. well done!

3) Position and stack size are way more important in tournament poker. You have the right idea in attacking the tighter ranges, but do so from position using either bets/shoves that create fold equity or 'intimidation' when you have a big stack behind ... IN POSITION.

Tournament players are less likely to 'trap' post-Flop from early position since they don't want to give out free cards on dry Boards. So if a PF raiser checks to you it's probably an ABC move that you can take advantage of if you have the right table image. Lots of check/check Turns in tournament poker for pot control. So use this to your advantage as well .. from position. GL

thanks boss, and your comments are excellent!