Rebuy Online Tournaments Decision Making

Published on: December 18, 2011 

The most common format of online tournaments is the rebuy tournament. In freeroll rebuy tournaments the players get their initial chip stack for free. Otherwise they have to pay the entry fee or buy-in for the initial stack of chips. In the course of trying to achieve a high score if the player loses the entire chip stack he has the option to pay a rebuy fee and purchase another stack. The question is that how many times a player should rebuy before giving up on the online tournament. If he sets too low a target then he would not be giving himself a reasonable chance of winning. If he rebuys too many times then he may be spending more than he should without any guarantee of winning.

The simplest case is for a freeroll rebuy tournament. The player can take the free chip stack and register his score with that. If he loses the chips he gives up. That way he does not stake any amount, but at the same time he will win only very few online tournaments with this strategy. If a player is willing to rebuy he should decide the number of rebuys before he registers for the tournament. Otherwise he is likely to get carried away and pay more than he wanted to and more than he could afford.

The correct approach is to start with the big picture and then zero in on individual events. The player should first decide his monthly or weekly bankroll based on his income, expenses and need for savings. This bankroll should be divided into two parts - for wagering on online casino games and for participating in online tournaments. This division depends entirely on the player’s preferences. Conservative players would have larger bankrolls for online tournaments than risk taking players. Having arrived at a weekly bankroll for online tournaments the player will have allocate it among a number of tournaments. The more online tournaments he decides to play, the less he will have for each tournament. If the prize pool is large then the rebuy fee will also be comparatively larger and around 5 rebuys may be a suitable number. If the prize pool is small then the rebuy fee will also be comparatively smaller and around 10 rebuys may be a suitable number. It will take the online casino player a few months to fine tune this decision making. He must hold two issues sacrosanct. The player must not exceed his weekly wagering budget under any circumstances. He should have decided the maximum rebuys for a tournament before he registers and having decided he must not waver during the course of the tournament.

The player will also have to take a call on whether the chip balance he has accumulated would give him a reasonable chance of breaking into the prize pool. Once he achieves this he can stop wagering and file his score. He must bear in mind that in trying to improve the score he may lose what he has accumulated. This again is a tricky decision, especially if the tournament has a fair way to go. Some of the players entering later are likely to overtake him. A workable thumb rule is that if he is half way through the number that will cash in the tournament he should be okay. Factors like the prize pool distribution and the player’s affinity for risk will have to be considered. For this decision making as well, a few months of practice will make the player feel more confident.

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