Rebuy my Ass

I hate rebuy tournaments. Actually, to be more specific, I hate the 1st hour of a rebuy tournament where you have unlimited rebuys. Everybody plays loose, going all in on gutshot draws, middle pair, even bottom pair. It's so easy to get sucked in and before you know it you've already rebought 4 times and you're still back to your original stack while cocksucking fishes have already quadrupled up.

But admittedly there's also a good thing to it. For a small amount of buy-in, the pot gets quite big. You just have to know how to conserve your stack and not get suckered by all the action. As a lot of poker players would say, the actual tourney starts only after the rebuy/add-on period ends.

So recently, I've added rebuy tourneys to the usual freeze-out MTTs that I play, but with a slight twist. I only register after 55 minutes of play have already passed by. This means that I bypass all the donkey play and go right into the action after the rebuys are almost done. Obviously, I am low stacked and start with a distinct disadvantage. But its still ok because once I avail of the addon then I would usually start with around 20x the big blind.

I then play short stack poker and hope to double up sometime in the next few rounds to get right back in the fight. Of course, things don't always come out my way. But I've played 3 rebuy tourneys using this strategy and I have ITM'd twice. My cost is fixed at 3x the buyin. (2 rebuys and 1 addon) and I don't end up spending too many rebuys trying to outplay the donkeys in the 1st few rounds. Also, I skip the 1st hour and my total playing time is shorter.

I wouldn't recommend this to everyone but I feel its a valid strategy that can reap dividends if you play it correctly.