Rebuy tournaments: the first hour, the add-on, and what the game costs

The number on the ticket is not the price. In the Rebuy Rush you start with 10,000 chips for $1.10 in the small game or $2.20 in the big one. For the first hour you can rebuy 10,000 chips as often as you like, for $1 or $2 each. When the rebuy hour ends you can take one add-on of 60,000 chips, for the same $1 or $2. A player who takes the add-on and rebuys twice has paid $4.10 for the small game, not $1.10.

So the first decision is the budget, made before you register: the buy-in, the add-on, and the number of rebuys you allow yourself. For most players that is one or two rebuys, which makes the small Rebuy Rush a $3 to $4 tournament and the big one a $6 to $8 tournament. Your bankroll should be measured against that figure, not against the ticket price. The rebuys feed the prize pool, which is why a rebuy tournament often pays out well above its guarantee when the field rebuys a lot.

Look at the two prices. A rebuy is 10,000 chips for a dollar. The add-on is 60,000 chips for a dollar. The add-on gives you six times the chips for the same money, and it is more than the stack most players will have at the end of the hour. That has two consequences, and they are the heart of rebuy strategy.

First, you always take the add-on. Whatever your stack is at the break, 60,000 chips for a dollar is the best price you will be offered all night, and the players who skip it start the second hour at a disadvantage against everyone who took it. Second, the chips you fight for in the first hour are worth less than they look, because the add-on is about to swamp them. A player who ends the hour with 15,000 and adds 60,000 has 75,000. A player who gambled, rebought three times and ends with 30,000 has 90,000 after the add-on and paid three dollars more for the difference. The first hour is not where the tournament is won.

The table is loose because nobody can bust. Players shove with weak hands, call with worse, and rebuy when it goes wrong, and the pots are large. The way to use that is simple: play strong hands for value and get paid, and do not join the gambling with weak ones. You are playing against people who will call you with anything, so a big hand earns more here than it ever will later, and a bluff earns nothing.

• Raise your good hands bigger than usual. The callers are there.
• Do not bluff. Nobody folds in a rebuy hour.
• Call all-ins with the hands that are ahead of a wide range: pairs, big aces, and not much else. A loose table is not a reason to gamble with the field; it is a reason to let them gamble into you.
• Keep your budget. If you have used your rebuys, play the rest of the hour as if it were a freezeout, and let the add-on bring you back.

Rebuy at once when you bust, as long as it is within your budget, because a seat with chips is worth more early than late, and the rebuy period will not come back. Whether you rebuy while you still have chips depends on the tournament's rules, which the lobby shows; where a rebuy is allowed with chips in front of you, a stack well below the starting stack is the time, because the extra 10,000 lets you play a hand rather than shove the first ace you see.

Do not rebuy to chase. Three rebuys in the first twenty minutes because the table is wild is three dollars that the add-on would have turned into 180,000 chips. The rebuy is for staying in the game, not for buying back what you lost.

At the end of the rebuy hour, take the add-on, then look at the table with fresh eyes. The stacks are all large again, the blinds are whatever the clock says, and from here on a lost stack is a lost tournament. Work out how many big blinds you have after the add-on. If it is more than 40, you are playing a normal deep-stacked tournament and the beginner or intermediate plan applies. If it is under 20, the blinds have outrun the chips and you are in push-or-fold territory earlier than the lobby suggested.

The players who gambled in the first hour do not all stop. Some keep playing as if the rebuys were still open, and that is where the second hour's money comes from: tight play against loose players for the first few levels after the break, then the normal tournament game as the field thins and the pay jumps come into view. The tournament calculator is for that last part.

Both have a guarantee, and our WePlay rule applies: every tournament with a guaranteed prize pool is worth your time. For a small bankroll it is the cheapest full evening of tournament poker on the room. The start times are in the lobby, in your own time zone, and the formats guide explains how a rebuy differs from a re-entry.