Secrets of the Amateurs

It's been a more difficult month, but it's encouraging to note that despite feeling like I've been swimming upstream the whole time, I'm only a few hundred down. I'll work it out exactly at the end of the month, as I am just about managing not to check my swings every day. Just about. I have been acutely aware lately that I have had much better results in rebuy tournaments than freezeouts so I thought I'd add that up and see where we stood. Over 270 freezeouts this year I am down about 20% of the total investment ; but over 250 rebuy tournaments (including speed tournaments) I have a much better ROI of +70%. That's without any massive wins to distort the figures. I'm sure I'm running bad in the freezeouts this year (I'd better be or else I really suck) and, while I know that even 500 tournaments isn't a lot statistically, there's still very little doubt in my mind that the rebuy tournaments are more profitable, for (at least) the following reasons :

1) Many opponents play very badly in the rebuy period when they get stuck. In a freezeout, your tilty opponent will do his chips and then kick the cat and/or go and play another game somewhere else. In a rebuy tournament, he can steam for several rebuys. Plus some players chase terribly towards the end of the rebuy period if they feel they don't have enough chips.

2) The tournaments have the same structure as freezeouts, but you're basically guaranteed to be there after the first hour, with decent chips compared to the blinds. Of course, so do most of the other players ; but at least if you're in a tournament with antes, for example, you have a much better chance of reaching the ante stage with chips than you do in a freezeout (on Stars for example).

3) Similarly with payout structures, they'll follow the same metric as for a freezeout based on the total number of runners, but quite often up to 25% of the field gives up during the rebuy period. Combine this with 2) and a good player who doesn't give up has a much better chance of reaching the bubble stage(s) where he can really start to press to good effect.

4) Rebuy tournaments may simply attract worse fields in general, although I'm not entirely sure about this one when I see how badly the rank and file are also playing in say a Pokerstars $50 freezeout.

The moderate downside is that the tournaments take longer and that factor doesn't appear in the results above. If you aren't playing rebuy tournaments online you should definitely have a look ; there's nothing wrong with playing tight during the rebuy period, just watching who's playing like a nutter and who isn't. It's best to rebuy as soon as possible just to take advantage of the people who will shove all their chips in with sub-standard hands, and usually take the add-on, although it's only compulsary if the add-on is for more chips than the rebuys. Basically if you're playing for example, a $30 rebuy you should see it as a $90 tournament, and if you do your chips early on then just start again. Pretend it's another $90 tournament starting now if that helps.

There are plenty of good rebuy tournaments around but if you want to ease your way in I can recommend the $10 rebuy on Stars, Monday, Wednesday and Friday lunchtimes. Unless you're stuck at work that is ! Ha Ha !

Addendum : I almost forgot one more point, most sites only rake the initial buyin (Paradise is an exception) so you're only paying around 3% rake instead of 10%.