Re-Entry Math Running Me Away

Short story, if people are going to stick their money in bad because they don't care about rebuying, that's good for you.

Your good hands have to hold to win tournaments.

Having "unlimited resources" definitely doesn't increase your EV or ROI. It gives you a better chance of winning any one tournament if you can rebuy unlimited times, sure. But it's a lot to spend on winning one tournament.

If you think the people who rebuy a ton are playing suboptimally to gamble for chips, counter that. If you think people are trying to push you around and bluff you off hands because you can't rebuy, counter that.

It’s become a rich man’s circus. It’s hard to read near the end of it; when villain sits down is he late-regging or on his seventh buyin. He turns over 68 and yea, he’s on to his eighth.

They have it now that you can rebuy on your phone. Literally bust, stand up and walk to the next table and be dealt in. It just takes variance to another level when some players thrive on taking big gambles, not on trying to win.

Long ago, when it first came out, I played free (no money) games on the internet. Probably still have them, IDK - I don’t play online anymore. But that’s what a MTT feels like right now: people taking crazy risks because they can.

I totally get why it is demoralizing to get knocked out by people who can buy back in if they get knocked out and they just don't care. But as Nath mentioned above it is actually a huge advantage for good players.

The way I look at it tournaments in the US usually pay 12.5% of the buy ins. In the WSOP it's 15%. So basically an average player would cash about 1 in 8 times. In the WSOP it's more like 1 in 7 times. The reason I play in tournaments most of the time I play poker is because I cash over 15% of the time I play. It used to be about 18% but I have decided to take more all in chances early on so I am better able to go deeper. I think this is why there are a lot of players who are making huge (polarizing) bets early on so that they can accumulate a lot of chips. And they are doing this because if they get knocked out they will buy back in. There was a guy at a WSOP circuit event who had bought in like 8 times before the first break.

I had an experience in Prague where a guy bought in late (like half an hour before buy ins ended) 6 or 7 times. I was told that he had won $2,900,000 in a tournament (likely Triton). He ended up not making the money in the $350 tournament I ended up winning. He played at my table twice and though I never played a hand against him I could see early on that basically he was jamming every hand he played so he could double up a few times (which he never did). If I had had AJ+/77+ and maybe 66/ATs I would have called and taken the chance to increase my stack getting good odds.

Recently at the Borgota in a $2,000,000 guaranteed tournament that cost $600 to enter, I was at a table just after the last break before buy ins that had 4 players who had just bought in and they had literally 7 blinds. The reason we had so many empty seats at the break was that shortish stacks went all in just before the break so they would have at least a starting stack moving forward (not something I would do...) I knocked one of them out with J9s which I had raised with preflop and they jammed with ATs and I basically had to call. I don't think any of them made the money. But players like that do make the prize pool better.

These are situations where it is very good for players with lots of chips because we will likely be getting good odds to call all ins and continue to build chips.

I get that if you can't buy back in it seems like its not worth playing at all. But even in tournaments that I won't buy back in I am happy to have good odds to double up early on. One time at the Venetian in a $1,600 tournament, the first hand I played I c/r'd all in with AA on the turn against two players and one folded. The other one called getting like 2:1 pot odds with a 20% chance of winning and hit 2 pair on the river to knock me out. I couldn't buy back in because I had just used an ATM and would not have been able to use it again even if I had wanted to. Though it felt devastating, I was actually glad I had got knocked out very early and could rest that day and play in a tournament the next day. So much better than getting knocked out right before the money.

If you are a below average player then I get why tournaments aren't for you. But if you are an above average player then people who are getting their chips all in in bad situations are actually helping you go deep. And they are increasing the prize pools.

Your edge in a tournament comes from your opponents' mistakes. People doing stuff like calling your all in with K7 is where your edge comes from.

What you're coming to terms with is variance, which is pretty extreme in MTTs. It depends on your edge, but you generally need a bankroll in the 100s of buyins to limit your risk of ruin. You might play around with the poker variance calculator below.

https://www.primedope.com/tournament-variance-calculator/

While variance can be the downside of MTTs, there is also a large upside with positive variance. I have looked at variance calculations and found that if I ran extremely bad I could lose for an entire year. The thing is, a bottom 10% variance result would still result in a pretty modest amount of money lost over the course of a year. On the other hand, a top 10% result for the year would result in winning exponentially more.

Live lucky baby!

I do believe everything happens for a reason:
Getting knocked out right at the break was kinda nice, because I just walked out like I was on break. Didn’t have everyone watching me walk out with my head down.

It had rained constantly for two days, so driving home a couple of hours through the mountains was easier before sundown.

Nobody seems to know how to apply math to my predicament. I guess I just keep getting my money in good and hope for a little positive variance at some point.

I took a chance one year and played the main event. I was the actual (not just close to it) bubble boy. I was the short stack for nearly an hour - everyone looking at me like why don’t you just give up already. Finally went out.

It was my most miserable poker experience. Played well and had a chance to cash in a bigger tournament than I normally play and left feeling humiliated. I don’t know if I’ll ever run good enough to make up for the bad times

I think if a couple of you had said that the odds against were huge, I could honestly give up the tournaments. I don’t want to beat my head against the wall. But when you say instead, I just need to play better, well I guess I’ll keep working on it.

You can’t win, if you don’t play

I love seeing the maniacs rebuying over and over. If you see them coming, you can bet they are shoving super-light. Of course, you have to have a good hand to justify calling -- and every once in a while they will have a premium -- but if you bide your time and wait for the right spot, you can felt them and chip up. It's not a bad thing, although it's frustrating when they call with a gutshot and hit it on you. Bad beat, but over the long haul you want people to make that call.

I was at the Wynn in December in an 1100 buy-in multi-day event. I came in a little late, but still with 50BB stacks and got seated at a table filled with only new entries, so we all had the same stack. This one guy (young guy, not sure where he got his money from), went all-in on the first hand. Everybody folded. He went all-in on the second hand. Everybody folded. So he picked up two rounds of blinds and antes. Third hand, he goes all in and another young-ish guy in the BB calls him with 22. The shover had A6o and lost. Ten minutes later, he was out and going back for another rebuy.

The rest of us found it frustrating to deal with this nonsense, and once he was gone, we got to play regular poker. But for the guy who doubled up through the maniac - it was a huge blessing.

Moral -- try to be the guy who doubles through the maniac.

Well, the odds against winning any one tournament are very high. Even for a really good player.

Here's the example I like to use: Let's say in a 100-person tournament that pays 15 (the number of entrants doesn't even matter for this example), you are good enough that in the long run you finish in each spot in the money twice as often as you would at random. (In other words, in the long run at random, in 100 tournaments you would finish each spot 1-100 once. Here you would finish between 1-15 twice.)

Rake aside, that would give you an ROI of 100%, which is possible consistently if you're really good and playing low stakes live, and basically impossible anywhere else. You'd be almost certainly the best player in the tournament.

And yet, even being that good, you'd still fail to even cash 70% of the time. (And if the tournament pays a lower percentage of the field than 15%, this can be even more extreme.)

That should give you an idea of how much variance there is in the short term in tournaments. You can't control which one is going to be yours. All you can do is keep grinding and making the best decisions you can and hope that today is the day the breaks go your way enough to win.

I think this gets down to the reason why you are playing:

If you are playing to maximize EV, I 100% agree with the above posters. Maniacs trying to build a stack are great for our EV. We were 70/30 to win your example hand. No one in the world has that kind of advantage. You should be high fiving the dealer for this 'luck'.

If you are playing because you enjoy tournaments, and aren't as interested in the EV, and only have one bullet, I'd strongly recommend you don't play. You won't get the enjoyment of playing lots of multi street poker, spending a significant part of your day doing so. You will be forced to basically be the house in a casino game. Boring, but profitable.

A few years back, I was playing the closer. Daniel Negreanu busted some 100K heads up, and took his seat to my direct right. I knew we were in a spot like you mentioned. I was happy to take the gamble if it came to it (It didn't, ironically he had KK busted in his first VPIP).

Being able to rebuy an unlimited number of times is no advantage over a single buy in. You have a greater chance to win a given tournament but your win is significantly less if you rebuy many times. I often play in a tournament where 1st place usually pays about 15 buyins. If you buy in once and win, you get 15-1 on your buyin. Someone who buys in 5 times would only get 3-1 for first place. That person probably ends up losing money for most lower position cashes (maybe winning a bit for second, roughly break even for third).

Mathematically there is absolutely no difference between rebuying in the tourney you are in and doing a late reg at the same stage of the next tournament with the same buy in, format and player pool. You can, as other posters have pointed out, usually take advantage of those who play poorly due to the rebuy though.

I have played in $800 rebuy tournaments where they have 4 day ones and first prize is 160k so I disagree with the above poster’s conclusions. I have decided to forego playing in these types of structures because I believe I have a disadvantage playing them with one or two bullets vs players willing to put in 8-10 buy ins.

I think what stremba is missing is that these people are NOT motivated by ROI like we are. Their thrill comes from cracking aces, winning big bluffs, and lots of other things that have nothing to do with winning the tournament.

I don’t even attempt to know their motivations, but it’s not making money, they have plenty of money. Bottom line, a limit of one or two buyins would be better for the game. Get rid of the clowns and let serious people compete.

Let's start with 812's tournament.

Assume everyone has equal skill, but some players will max fire. Everyone plays exactly the same (pretend we just put robots instead of humans). The players with 8 bullets in their wallet will NOT win 4 times as often as the players with 2 bullets? Why? Well, sometimes they bag the first bullet!

Ok, that is the baseline. Now change it so that the deeper pockets guys play a higher variance style. For this example, I am assuming one reentry per flight. They will, on average have more chips when (if) they bag, and are thus more likely to win. Once they bag, they are in the same boat as anyone else; they can't use their extra bullets any more. However, they are less likely to bag on a given bullet. This is actually quite good for you; they are not only making negative CeV decisions, but we know from ICM that voluntarily flipping at exactly 50-50 is never good. They are doing even worse than that.

3d scenario. This is essentially real life. Now we have someone with deep pockets, AND a skill edge. If their ROI after bagging is high enough, then they are quite correct to max fire. This is where the problem comes in. A very good MTT pro in an $800 tournament might have an ROI of something like 1.4-1.6. In their shoes, it does make sense to not only max fire, but take those flips that would be negative EV for the vast majority of players.

You might think they should revery to normal poker once they are playing what becomes a freeze out, but even this is not true. Why? Because they will have an opportunity to play some other tournament where they once again are making ~50% on their money.

I offer no solutions for this problem. It is real. However, if you are a winning player and can identify those who are playing this super high variance style, you can benefit from their aggression. After all, they ARE losing CeV with their style. (If they aren't then they are just playing good poker).

You've just got to look at each bullet as if it was a separate person. When you look at it that way your one bullet is just as likely to win as any other single bullet (assuming equal skill level). In fact these players playing bad and rebuying make your one bullet more likely to win than theirs.

Now if you buy in one time and they bought in eight times, assuming equal skill they will have a better chance to win the tournament than you, but here's the thing: They paid eight times as much for that privilege!

You've got to take the ego out of the equation and realize that your average ROI should actually go up when bad players rebuy many times. A rich guy rebuying eight times is similar to eight individual bad players entering.

Now 3for3 hit on the real problem, which is pros rebuying. If a pro rebuys eight times, it's almost like eight individual pros entering. It's similar to the effect of online multitabling where the pros are multiplied because they're all playing multiple tables.

Anyway at the end of the day, the REAL tournament begins when the rebuys end (often at the start of day 2, no pun intended).

Ultimately I agree with you that limiting rebuys to one rebuy per flight or something would improve the player experience. It's unlikely to happen though, as casinos want to maximize rake, and generate the biggest prize pools possible.

Exactly why do you want bad players eliminated and adding LESS money to the prize pool? Yes, I get that it’s frustrating when you play well and lose to someone who just gambled with a garbage hand. Long term, though, that’s profitable.

How is there any difference between one person with ten entries and ten people with one entry? Mathematically, a person rebuying after busting out is just a new late registering entry. That fact that it’s that same person is irrelevant.

The problem is that each new entry makes it less likely that you will win. It’s easier to win a tournament with 20 entries than it is to win one with 200 entries. Rebuys don’t change that math; they just tend to make for larger fields but with increased prize pools. IOW, they don’t affect your EV; they increase variance. That increased variance might be something you find undesirable, but rebuys aren’t costing you money.

I just went deep (well 7th place out of like 550) in a WSOP Circuit $400 multi day NL tournament in Baltimore. The first Day 1 I bought in twice and was eliminated twice. The next Day 1 I bought in once but was seeing players go all in quite a bit.

A guy raised in MP and two players called and I decided not to 3 bet with AQo in the SB because I would have jammed preflop and I didn't like the idea of being called by AK or a PP. And one of the players would basically always call with a PP. The flop was AJ4 and checked around. The turn was like a 3 so I bet like 7,000 which was like 40% pot. The original raiser called and the rest folded. The river was a 9 and I bet 12,000 which was a smallish value bet where I thought the guy would call with an A. The original raiser jammed for about 40,000 which I covered and I insta called because yes he could have A9 but so what? I was happy to double up to about 3x starting stack or get knocked out. He turned over KJo and I felt very good about it. There was literally no reason for him to not just call the 12,000 river bet except for not wanting to have below a starting stack at that point in the tournament. And I think he thought it would look like he had like AK/AJ or a set.

Then it got crazier. I don't remember the sizing but I opened MP with AQo (at a different table). I had about 140,000 chips at the time. The chip leader with 300,000 chips called and the BB called. The flop came A87 two spades but the A was not a spade. I bet like 12,000 which was likely about 33% pot but again I don't remember exactly. The Chip leader on the BTN called and the BB jammed for 101,000. I immediately jammed to get it HU and I realized I was either way behind or flipping against some kind of draw. The CL tanked and ultimately decided to call. With QTs. The BB had A3s. While BB could have A8/A7 type hands it was a world where any AXs or Straight draw & flush draw would be doing this. And I thought most 77/88 might not jam but raise 3x or slightly less or just call and c/r jam the turn. And finally for the first time in over a year I won a monster pot when I had a decent edge (here it is actually 55% vs 39% vs 3% with like 3% chance of chopping with A3s). Now in fairness to reality part of the reason I jammed and didn't fold was that my 98 year old mother was in the emergency room in NY and I wasn't sure if I was going to have to leave and go to NY. So I was OK with getting knocked out.

I am actually very grateful for all of the players who are jamming early and buying back in. Because while the quality of players in WSOP circuit events are actually quite good (there are very few bad players) this thing about jamming and buying back in makes calling a much better option on day 1 when registration is still open.

I have a lot of respect for you stremba, but this is so flawed. If I start a tournament knowing I can buy in 10x, then I can jam at will, bluff aggressively, take big risks etc

Ten different players would play reasonably

Takeaway:
The structure is not going to change
I’m not griping anymore
I’m not mad at anyone, they can do what they want with their money.
I will continue to take my shot for a ring when it comes around
If I ever win one, I’ll probably join the re-entry crowd.

Again, why do you think having bad opponents hurts you? If those opponents arenÂ’t bad, then you should be emulating their aggressive style and just accepting that you are likely going to bust early or accumulate a big stack for a deep run. Since you donÂ’t play that way, and since you assume that a person buying in once would not play that way, it seems you agree that these players are making a mistake by playing this way. In any form of poker, we benefit when our oppoments make mistakes.

We humans are not always completely rational animals. One thing I notice in my own thinking and also when discussing things like this with others is that we have a tendency to categorize players in a tournament into two categories - me and someone else. If I don’t win the tournament then “someone else” did. We look at players like you describe and fail to separate them from the category of “someone else” and therefore conclude that since “someone else” won that these players must have gained an advantage over us by playing ad they did. Well, yes “someone else” did win, but chances are it’s not the same “someone else” winning each time and it’s usually not the “someone else” who you are talking about in this post. “Someone else” did gain an advantage and won the tournament because of these players you are talking about. Maybe next time, it won’t be “someone else who parleys that advantage into a win, and recognize that if it isn’t, your win will be significantly larger because of the multiple buy ins.

I think the most obvious answer is that the player with multiple bullets adopts a different consideration when evaluating risking their tournament life, plays a riskier style until they reach a certain stack level. Whereas ten new players with one bullet each would likely not deviate from the herd regarding the value of their tournament life. Whether this new strategy is better or worse is debatable but I would argue that with a player of similar skill level it is advantageous to them and disadvantageous to a one and done player.

No one is arguing your strawman arguments here. Of course beating 20 players is easier than 200. Of course, you win less if you factor in rebuys against your return.

If you don’t think rebuys change your tournament strategy in any mathematical sense, do you believe in icm or bubble strategy divergence from the math either?

I didn’t say you shouldn’t change your strategy. I said that players rebuying multiple times is not detrimental to your win rate, especially if these players are playing suboptimally because they are rebuying. Yes, you should call lighter, for example, against such a player who is shoving an overly wide range. I never would say otherwise. All I am saying is that an adjustment such as this is not detrimental to your win rate. Yes you risk busting earlier, but it also gives you a better chance to double up earlier too.

If ten hyper aggressive players entreated the tournament playing exactly the same strategy as one player who rebuys nine times, would you think that’s a bad thing? You will argue that players buying in once don’t play like that. Why not? Obviously, you would agree with me that such a strategy is a mistake. Otherwise, you would want to emulate that strategy yourself, and players only entering once would use it. If it is indeed a mistake, then why would it not benefit the opponents of the player who makes the mistake? You always benefit when your opponents make mistakes, even if it’s frustrating and even if it creates a high-variance game that seems like it’s harder to win. In the long run, the presence of these players benefits the good players.

I had a moment of clarity after my last post, and I realized that maybe I haven’t made my own opinion clear. You guys are not objecting to rebuys, not really anyway. You are objecting to the presence of players who are playing a hyper aggressive strategy that you are having trouble adjusting to and beating. This strategy, to be sure, is enabled by being able to rebuy multiple times, but it would be no better for you if there were a subset of say 20-30 players in the field who entered once and played this style.

Are you disadvantages by this style? Well, if you insist on playing the same strategy you would if these players weren’t present, then yes. But that is the crux of poker, isn’t it? Identify your opponent’s mistakes and modify your strategy to exploit them. If you can do so, you will indeed benefit from having such players in the field. If you can’t, then sure, you probably will see your win rate suffer. The onus is on YOU, though, not on these players to change how they play and not on the house to modify the rebuy rules.

I agree almost completely with your last post but add the caveat that the only way I think you can prevail in these large guarantee, small buy in (500-1000) is to buy in multiple times as well. Their strategy, plus skill and numbers cannot be overcome with mere adjustment in playing style. Some of these tournaments even allow you to go forward with your largest stacks and give a payout for the forfeited stack.

These tournaments require you to fire more than one bullet as part of your strategy adjustment, in my opinion. Thus, if you are not willing to play this multi rebuy strategy, I have opted to not play these tournaments anymore despite the awesome prize pools.

Yeah the reality in these large field tournaments is that you're buying a glorified lottery ticket. If you're a good player it's a +EV lottery ticket, but it's still basically a lottery ticket.