There are two types of poker tournaments. Freezeout tournaments are where you buy into the tournament and only have one tournament life and once you bust your tournament is over. Re-buy tournaments are a little more gamble orientated and allow for players to buy back into the tournament once they have busted out, usually for the opening three levels. This helps build the prize pool for the winning players and encourages a more gambling approach to the normally quiet opening levels of the tournament where you gamble to gain a large stack. You hopefully use this large stack to win the tournament or achieve a high finish and thus a large prize.

We are going to focus on re-buy tournaments in this article. These are the poker tournaments that gamblers enjoy because you are pushing chips into the middle seeking to build your stack. Making huge impressive laydowns are not part of the early re-buy tournament strategy book.

There is, however, no reason to be reckless. Re-buy tournaments offer great value as you can see a massive increase in the prize pool and there will be times where your AJ’s and KQ’s hold up awarding you with a monster stack for your single buy-in but you should have no problem folding a hand if you think the situation warrants it. What a re-buy tournament allows is for you to continue in the tournament even if you suffer a terrible bad beat and are eliminated, so whilst you can fold making the marginal call is probably correct. In a standard Freezeout that would be it for you, but in a re-buy tournament you can buy back in. From that point of view, the luck factor is reduced somewhat. Providing you have a maximum amount of buy-ins planned for the tournament in advance and do not go crazy and risk your bankroll, re-buy tournaments can be fun and offer you the chance to win big prizes.

When deciding whether or not to buy back in consider how good the competition is. If you have bought in three times already and have been severely outplayed throughout then do not buy in again. If you have just been unlucky then perhaps another buy-in is a good investment. Do not buy in again simply because you are not ready to stop playing, buy in because you feel it is a good spot for your money.

Some players specialise in the re-buy tournaments because they are willing to bust in return for building a massive chip stack before the end of the re-buy period. They ride their luck and hope to have a chance to win when the proper tournament begins. Play will be extremely loose until there are no more re-buys then you will notice a big change in play type and things will tighten up considerably. Make sure you also tighten up and do not get carried away by the constant action in hands. In most tournaments, play gets more and more action based until the end but in re-buy tournaments things start crazy then go normal again, then loosen up again as the blinds get bigger in relation to stacks. If you are not good at changing gears in a tournament then re-buy tournaments will teach you a lot about changing gears and poker strategy.

There is not one type of poker tournament that is better than another. They cater for different players needs and demand different approaches from players who wish to succeed in each format. Whilst you will want to specialise, it is important to try all types of poker to see which suits you best. What you think may be ideal for you may not be, and vice versa. Bwinpoker.com offers many types of re-buy and standard Freezeout tournaments for people will all types of bankroll, and even if you only reaffirm your belief that you are a Freezeout only poker player, re-buys are still worth playing if only for the experience.

By Malcolm Clarke