Tourney Rebuys without encouraging "reckless play"? (1 Viewer)

[Taghkanic]

If a player busts their first T20K, they can trade in the lammer for another T20K, or they can cash it in for tournament chips right away and start with a double stack if they want.

I haven’t fully thought it through, but my first instinct is that it would be highly advantageous to use the lammer as soon as possible, especially if others aren’t doing so. The chips are worth more big blinds early, and you’d substantially cover the table from the get-go.

That seems like a big leg up. Sure, you risk busting early very occasionally. But playing 2x deeper than most everyone from the very start strikes me as worth that risk. Am I wrong here?

 

[ekricket]

I haven’t fully thought it through, but my first instinct is that it would be highly advantageous to use the lammer as soon as possible, especially if others aren’t doing so. The chips are worth more big blinds early, and you’d substantially cover the table from the get-go.

That seems like a big leg up. Sure, you risk busting early very occasionally. But playing 2x deeper than most everyone from the very start strikes me as worth that risk. Am I wrong here?

just another angle to manage.......

 

[legonick]

I haven’t fully thought it through, but my first instinct is that it would be highly advantageous to use the lammer as soon as possible, especially if others aren’t doing so. The chips are worth more big blinds early, and you’d substantially cover the table from the get-go.

That seems like a big leg up. Sure, you risk busting early very occasionally. But playing 2x deeper than most everyone from the very start strikes me as worth that risk. Am I wrong here?

Maybe more often then not it becomes a situation of the good players take the option immediately and the donks don't take it, and occasionally get a free bonus from the forced turn-in, but more often than not, just get a 2nd life.

That's why it feels like it needs to be incentivized NOT to be turned in early. Some bonus chips if keep your extra life.

 

[trigs]

I haven’t fully thought it through, but my first instinct is that it would be highly advantageous to use the lammer as soon as possible, especially if others aren’t doing so. The chips are worth more big blinds early, and you’d substantially cover the table from the get-go.

That seems like a big leg up. Sure, you risk busting early very occasionally. But playing 2x deeper than most everyone from the very start strikes me as worth that risk. Am I wrong here?

I've considered this and often felt that cashing in the lammer right away is best, but most people don't do it from my experience.

 

[Beakertwang]

I offer one rebuy, and one half-price/half-stack add on at the first break. That keeps the short stacks from feeling like they need to jam before the break.

 

[Saoliver]

My brother's game is a bunch of inexperienced players, especially at tournaments. So...we play for one entry fee that includes a 2nd chance rebuy/add-on. If you don't rebuy before the color-up/first break, then it turns into an add-on for the full amount of the starting stack. It seems to work for us.

 

[Frogzilla]

I haven’t fully thought it through, but my first instinct is that it would be highly advantageous to use the lammer as soon as possible, especially if others aren’t doing so. The chips are worth more big blinds early, and you’d substantially cover the table from the get-go.

That seems like a big leg up. Sure, you risk busting early very occasionally. But playing 2x deeper than most everyone from the very start strikes me as worth that risk. Am I wrong here?

SHRB from 2018 (I think?) used a format like this and only Rick Salamon used them early. Keep those lammers as rebuys til you bust. ICM

 

[Jimulacrum]

That is exactly what I'm afraid of!

I'm looking for some way to tone down the IMHO biggest downside of tournament play for casual home games, without ramping up the lottery aspect. Lots of good ideas in here.

I wonder if booze isn't a good answer? LOL. If a few people bust, I would not be surprised to see them hang out for a bit to watch the game and enjoy a cocktail with friends. Maybe they don't make the showdown, but at least they'd have some fun even with a 9th place finish.

It seems like you don't have a current problem with players getting too wild with rebuys, just a hypothetical problem that you think might come up. My advice to you is this:

Start simple. Allow one rebuy anytime in the first X levels, whatever works for your structure. A normal rebuy, no need to get into half-stacks or pre-buys or anything complicated. That covers the base of people carving out time for poker and having to go home after 15 minutes due to a cooler. And having only one rebuy should handily contain the issue of players getting too wild. I'm not sure why half this thread is suggesting you implement complex solutions to a simple problem that doesn't even exist yet.

One more thing worth noting: If you get this rolling and find that a significant number of players complain about others "playing bingo," you need to get some better players on your invite list. A game full of nits who whine about loose play is not a fun game. It's not even because they don't get that loose rebuys are EV+. The issue is that they resent the one thing that every good poker game should be full of: gambling.

 

[upNdown]

Sometimes a player with a big stack forgoes the add-on (which I think is a strategic mistake, but it’s up to them.)

disagree
If I did well in the early levels and came back to 30 or 35 bb when the average is 20 - I can't imagine going into my pocket for another 8bb.
But I'm always trying to beat the system, and I figure if everybody's doing it, I'll just do the opposite.

 

[Mr Winberg]

I'm looking for some way to tone down the IMHO biggest downside of tournament play for casual home games, without ramping up the lottery aspect. Lots of good ideas in here.

I'll give you another one:

I tried to introduce low stake cash games on tournament nights (usually ~20 players +/- 5), but it didn't take off. The pattern I saw was that after the rebuy-period (about 1.5-2 hours depending on the structure and # of players) someone would finally be eliminated "for real", i.e. can't rebuy any more. That person would eagerly await the cash game. After a while a second player is finally eliminated, but doesn't want to play cash heads up, so they wait. The third and forth person are eliminated, but don't want to play cash. Finally a fifth is eliminated, but now the first player has left, fed up with waiting. And the second still doesn't want to play heads up, so the fifth leaves.... etc etc.

So I switched to pure freezouts, which had been my best poker decision to date!! A cash game is often started within the hour, and ALWAYS within 2h! When the ITM players are battling it out I have one if not two tables of cash games, and several of the previously "tourney only" players have even suggested that we skip the tourneys and only play cash! I like tournaments too, so I will keep combining.

So although I realize that this is dependent on your particular players, my experience is that rebuys kill the cash game!

I avoid rebuys for completely different reasons! ;-)

The reason being:

I used to cut off rebuys after two hours, but almost no one wants to play cash afterwards anyway...

 

[Taghkanic]

A game full of nits who whine about loose play is not a fun game. It's not even because they don't get that loose rebuys are EV+.

I would agree if we were discussing a room full of random strangers.

Hosting a game among friends is different.

1. There is not an unlimited number of players for such games, especially in sparsely-populated areas.

2. The goal is not just maximizing prize pools, but camaraderie.

3. In many games (including mine), the range of income levels is pretty wide. I’ve got players who stock grocery shelves sitting with guys who got golden parachutes from Fortune 500 companies. Farmers playing with retired ad execs. I could host a game with just the rich guys, or just the working men, but we like our group. So our stakes and structures are set to keep everyone in the same game.

Even if the poorer players are more skilled (in reality some are, some aren’t), it is just a fact that in an unlimited rebuy game, variance means that someone with a 50,000 buy-in roll can put one bankrolled for 50 games at a huge disadvantage.

Hence the need to think these things through. If I want a game where maximizing EV is the only concern, I go to a casino. No need to host a good home game for that.

 

[Taghkanic]

disagree
If I did well in the early levels and came back to 30 or 35 bb when the average is 20 - I can't imagine going into my pocket for another 8bb.
But I'm always trying to beat the system, and I figure if everybody's doing it, I'll just do the opposite.

The way I figure it:

If the average is 20 and they all add on, by not adding on 8 when you have 30 or 35, you’re letting them almost even up stacks. I’d much rather have 38-43 vs 28 than 30 vs 28.

If I am confident in my skill plus a chip lead, that add-on is coming back to me with interest.

 

[Coyote]

IMHO, tournaments are horrible poker and the reason I have still hosted a handful of them is either educational / recruitment or financial security (guaranteed maximum loss) among very good friends (NOT poker buddies) who may suck at poker or have little disposable income for entertainment.
With these considerations, the issue is to avoid a cash game anyway with such a group.

Still, as @Taghkanic said, the concern is to keep everybody in the game as long as possible, within reason.
Alternatives I offer to people who bust out are to either become dedicated dealers or get seriously drunk.

 

[legonick]

IMHO, tournaments are horrible poker and the reason I have still hosted a handful of them is either educational / recruitment or financial security (guaranteed maximum loss) among very good friends (NOT poker buddies) who may suck at poker or have little disposable income for entertainment.
With these considerations, the issue is to avoid a cash game anyway with such a group.

Still, as @Taghkanic said, the concern is to keep everybody in the game as long as possible, within reason.
Alternatives I offer to people who bust out are to either become dedicated dealers or get seriously drunk.

Off topic, but since I like to debate - why do you think tournaments are horrible poker?

I feel like some people say that because they don't like to have to consider the extra considerations at various stages in a tournament, like ICM. They want to stay in their well understood and practiced "pure" cash game world.

Tournaments offer great things to home games. It's fun to have a "winner". It's good to have a guaranteed maximum loss. It plays well into poker leagues. It forces big showdowns & some gamble late in the tournament. The suck outs, the wins, the moments! They all feel a bit more...boring when there is no "title" on the line. The biggest downside is by far the "exclusion" mechanic. The fear of early bust-outs.

Eventually I think I'd like to get my home game to a place where it's tournament, but if you bust, cash game. Who knows, maybe that cash game will take over some day!

 

[upNdown]

Off topic, but since I like to debate - why do you think tournaments are horrible poker?

I feel like some people say that because they don't like to have to consider the extra considerations at various stages in a tournament, like ICM. They want to stay in their well understood and practiced "pure" cash game world.

Tournaments offer great things to home games. It's fun to have a "winner". It's good to have a guaranteed maximum loss. It plays well into poker leagues. It forces big showdowns & some gamble late in the tournament. The suck outs, the wins, the moments! They all feel a bit more...boring when there is no "title" on the line. The biggest downside is by far the "exclusion" mechanic. The fear of early bust-outs.

Eventually I think I'd like to get my home game to a place where it's tournament, but if you bust, cash game. Who knows, maybe that cash game will take over some day!

YES!
Hallelujah!

 

[Coyote]

@legonick
It's a race towards short-stacked and then extremely short-stacked poker, where you end up having a binary switch: Fold pre or all-in pre.
Meanwhile, in the first couple of levels or three, where the stacks are big, I never really know what to do (I feel something like WTF, are we playing now?), despite having read some basics about tournaments (probably my dislike prevents me from assimilating anything I read or I m' just dumb)

Maybe I dislike having what I see as an extraneous consideration (which is the very limited number of chips eventually available to me) when making decisions

Other than that, tourneys do offer wallet security.
But the "winner" is almost a matter of pure luck in the end.
I would respect much more as a player someone who has been repeatedly in the final phase (final table of MTT, final 3 of STT, I don't know, you name it) without ever winining, than someone who has been there many fewer times but has won a couple of "titles".

 

[Jimulacrum]

I would agree if we were discussing a hand of random strangers.

Hosting a game among friends is different.

1. There is not an unlimited number of players for such games, especially in sparsely-populated areas.

2. The goal is not just maximizing prize pools, buy camaraderie.

3. In many games (including mine), the range of income levels is pretty wide. I’ve got players who stock grocery shelves sitting with guys who got golden parachutes from Fortune 500 companies. Farmers playing with retired ad execs. I could host a game with just the rich guys, or just the working men, but we like our group. So our stakes and structures are set to keep everyone in the same game.

Even if the better players are more skilled (in reality some are, some aren’t), it is just a fact that in an unlimited rebuy game, variance means that someone with a 50,000 buy-in roll can put one bankrolled for 50 games at a huge disadvantage.

Hence the need to think these things through. If I want a game where maximizing EV is the only concern, I go to a casino. No need to host a good home game for that.

I get what you're saying, and I agree with a substantial portion of it.

But the main point I'm trying to make (by "A game full of nits who whine about loose play is not a fun game. It's not even because they don't get that loose rebuys are EV+," and the rest of my reply) isn't that it's above-all important for the game to be appealing to a competitive player. It's that excitement is one of the critical ingredients of a good game, for any group. The kind of player who cries about the guy who's throwing a party is stifling excitement, on purpose, specifically because he doesn't know how to deal with it.

In my experience, this type of player often checks these boxes as well:

• Fears losing money and/or is playing over his head
• Takes the game too seriously
• Quibbles over small things
• Doesn't enjoy gambling

Most games have a player or two who are like this, and it's not a huge deal, but you shouldn't excessively cater to them. The long-term, cumulative effect of catering to these players is that, over time, your game becomes full of them and in turn gets boring, if not also tense.

 

[Saoliver]

@Josh Kifer get in here. No...seriously. He plays a weekly rebuy tournament with the same crew every week. His insight will add value here.

 

[Taghkanic]

Some find matching wits with other thinking players more “exciting” than repeatedly running out 45-55 preflop flips to satisfy the action junkies...

 

[Josh Kifer]

@Josh Kifer get in here. No...seriously. He plays a weekly rebuy tournament with the same crew every week. His insight will add value here.

I dunno. I've been rufflin' feathers today....

We faced this issue a few ways. First, it was a single rebuy per person. We also played with reduction rebuys. First one is 1k less, then 2k less. With the blinds, it makes rebuying alot less fruitful. We have ended on unlimited rebuys for the first 4 blindsets. After that, it's table vote.

That has actually been really good, because if someone is going off the rails on a loss Bender, we can reign it in. Had to do it a few times. But hey, we're a close group, so it's always never an issue.

 

[Jimulacrum]

But the "winner" is almost a matter of pure luck in the end.

I strongly agree with your preference for cash poker. I'll play tournaments from time to time, but cash is a far superior form of the game IMO. Lifetime, I've played probably 100 hours of cash poker for every 1 hour of tournament poker.

However, this claim about the results being almost pure chance just ain't true. If your game is all guys who are at the same skill level, chance is the deciding factor. Same if the whole field is a herd of donkeys. But assuming there's a meaningful spread of skill levels, and the tournament structure is reasonable, the skilled players will typically outperform the unskilled players by a long shot.

 

[Coyote]

I strongly agree with your preference for cash poker. I'll play tournaments from time to time, but cash is a far superior form of the game IMO. Lifetime, I've played probably 100 hours of cash poker for every 1 hour of tournament poker.

However, this claim about the results being almost pure chance just ain't true. If your game is all guys who are at the same skill level, chance is the deciding factor. Same if the whole field is a herd of donkeys. But assuming there's a meaningful spread of skill levels, and the tournament structure is reasonable, the skilled players will typically outperform the unskilled players by a long shot.

I mean the winner gets lucky in relation to the next 2 finalists in an STT or in relation to probably the whole final table in a large MTT.
Not that the "results" in general are a matter of luck.
So being top 3 in an STT or at the final table in a large MTT is undoubtedly meaningful of someone's skill.
That's what I said.

 

[ekricket]

@legonick
It's a race towards short-stacked and then extremely short-stacked poker, where you end up having a binary switch: Fold pre or all-in pre.
Meanwhile, in the first couple of levels or three, where the stacks are big, I never really know what to do (I feel something like WTF, are we playing now?), despite having read some basics about tournaments (probably my dislike prevents me from assimilating anything I read or I m' just dumb)

Maybe I dislike having what I see as an extraneous consideration (which is the very limited number of chips eventually available to me) when making decisions

Other than that, tourneys do offer wallet security.
But the "winner" is almost a matter of pure luck in the end.
I would respect much more as a player someone who has been repeatedly in the final phase (final table of MTT, final 3 of STT, I don't know, you name it) without ever winining, than someone who has been there many fewer times but has won a couple of "titles".

A cash game is a race to beat the house rake and your opponents dwindling reserves - even if he replaces some of them he runs out of something and leaves. If your cash game ends after six hours then it’s really just a different kind of tournament.

 

[Mojo1312]

Have you seen people use those together?

The STT I played in limited players to one re-buy. Starting stacks were 80BB's with 20 minute levels. There was an add-on option, (Half of the starting stack for half the buy-in amount) for players who did not re-buy into the tournament at the end of the re-buy period. (Level three)

Having played in my share of STT's and MTT's, I see STT's as friendly get togethers where you can model the structure to fit your group. I am not as flexible in my views when discussing MTT's and their formats in that I believe players who re-buy should not suffer a disadvantage by receiving a smaller stack or being ineligible for an add-on.

Regarding those who are of the opinion that winning tournaments or finishing in the money is luck based versus skill based, phooey.

 

[upNdown]

I mean the winner gets lucky in relation to the next 2 finalists in an STT or in relation to probably the whole final table in a large MTT.
Not that the "results" in general are a matter of luck.
So being top 3 in an STT or at the final table in a large MTT is undoubtedly meaningful of someone's skill.
That's what I said.

Did you ever get heads up with somebody in a tournament, and realize that they suck at heads up play?
It's a joy everybody should experience for themselves.

 

[trigs]

Did you ever get heads up with somebody in a tournament, and realize that they suck at heads up play?
It's a joy everybody should experience for themselves.

My buddy used to run a bar league for a while and we'd always get 3ish tables. I think the buy-in was $20. It was mostly trying to get more drinkers in the bar. My second time playing, I got heads up against this really nice guy but he was so out of his element it was cute. He more or less blinded out in second as I quickly noticed that he'd basically fold to every preflop raise. To this day, the easiest heads up opponent I've ever played in a tournament.

 

[ekricket]

My buddy used to run a bar league for a while and we'd always get 3ish tables. I think the buy-in was $20. It was mostly trying to get more drinkers in the bar. My second time playing, I got heads up against this really nice guy but he was so out of his element it was cute. He more or less blinded out in second as I quickly noticed that he'd basically fold to every preflop raise. To this day, the easiest heads up opponent I've ever played in a tournament.

Wow, you got lucky, otherwise you woulda never won that.

 

[trigs]

Wow, you got lucky, otherwise you woulda never won that.

Can't deny I didn't have any luck making to heads up. It's a tournament. I can play perfectly and still not win.

 

[Jimulacrum]

Did you ever get heads up with somebody in a tournament, and realize that they suck at heads up play?
It's a joy everybody should experience for themselves.

I won a tournament pretty early in my poker "career" at the Paris in Vegas. Just an under-$100 tourney with a fast structure, and they used to run a bunch of them every day.

When it got heads-up, IIRC my opponent and I were about even in chips. But based on his play, I was easily a 3:1 favorite, if not better. A stolen pot here, a stolen pot there, and all of a sudden it's over and I won. He just had no idea how to keep up.

I mean the winner gets lucky in relation to the next 2 finalists in an STT or in relation to probably the whole final table in a large MTT.
Not that the "results" in general are a matter of luck.
So being top 3 in an STT or at the final table in a large MTT is undoubtedly meaningful of someone's skill.
That's what I said.

Apologies for misreading what you'd said before, but I gotta say I disagree with this too. Granted, some tournies are into crapshoot mode with massive blinds by the final 3. That can happen. But the fight through the final table, and especially the top few places, is typically far more dependent on skill than the early levels, where you should usually be playing a tight, straightforward game and letting your opponents bust each other out.

 

[ekricket]

Can't deny I didn't have any luck making to heads up. It's a tournament. I can play perfectly and still not win.

Would it be the same as cash (over the long run..... yada, yada) if you played enough tournaments perfectly would you eventually be a big winner? Just wondering, math is math, it’s got to work the same in both scenarios.