Should you always add on in rebuy tournaments?

Multi Table Tournaments / Marcus Bateman / 19 April 2010 / Leave a Comment

......watch any known high stakes winning tournament player in a rebuy tournament – they will basically always add on regardless of their chip situation – as they understand the power even slim extras make in the long run to winning success.

In nearly all rebuy tournaments players are presented with the option of 'adding on' a set number of chips for a fee at the end of the rebuy period. Many inexperienced players who have already built up a big stack during the rebuy period often ask whether or not they should bother adding on - simply because it seems a waste of money considering the add on would represent a fairly slim percentage of their current stack.

However, every chip is important in tournament poker, as a big stack gives you not only a much greater chance at surviving deep into the tournament, but also gives you many more strings in your bow in terms of possible moves (and therefore the likelihood of increasing your stack even more against weaker players). This is an irresistible combination in tournament poker, and one which makes it nearly always correct to add on. As a simple example of this, watch any known high stakes winning tournament player in a rebuy tournament - they will basically always add on regardless of their chip situation - as they understand the power even slim extras make in the long run to winning success.

On top of the simple point that you basically should always be looking to build your stack in rebuy tournaments pretty much regardless of cost, add ons nearly always represent very good value in terms of their chip to dollar ratio. Add ons usually give you between 1.5 to 2 times the amount of chips that the same amount of cash would have bought you a single rebuy, and as a result represent tremendous value when presented to you.

As a final point about the great value of add ons is that they are always rake free, meaning that not only are you getting a lot of chips for a smaller fee than you normally would, but you are also not having to pay the house any fees in return. Rebuy tournaments have much larger prize pools compared to the average spend of all of the players compared to freeze out tournaments, simply because of the fact that most of the money is injected into the prize pool rake free (neither the rebuys or add ons are raked). This makes them much better value than regular freeze outs, and combine this with the fact that a skilled player can acquire a big stack much easier and it is easy to see why rebuy tournaments carry such provide such great opportunities for skilled players.

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