Psycho Re-buyers

IronDoc

I'm playing some am re-buy tourney's lately on PS and getting to the final three tables generally. But the first hour is sheer insanity as people are REALLY trying to double/triple and even quadruple up with very little.

Is there a different play or strategy here that some of you may be using? Perhaps I need to loosen up a bit in the first hour? It sure would be nice having a little more stackage going into the final 3 tables...thanks all.

Bill

SirWatts

Personally in the first hour I will take any coin flip or +EV situation until I amass a big chip stack. Depending on the players this can mean a lot of things. If you're lucky you will have someone trying to win the weekly TLB at your table going all-in every hand. In this case I will call with any above average hand if I am closing the betting, increasing my requirement to call depending on the players behind me. In general you want to stay tight, but play your good hands for all your chips if the others are willing to do so. I want to get in there and gamble, but only when I figure to have the best hand. I think the key idea is if you're probably at worst a coinflip go for it, but don't get all-in hoping to be a coinflip at best. Calling an all-in with a small pair is a bad idea against all but the most crazy rebuyers, but with a middle to large pair should be automatic against a psycho. Every now and then you run into a monster but more often than not you have the best hand. Once you amass some chips you probably want to tighten up, but continuing to gamble and go for the monster stack is also kind of appealing This can get costly when you lose every race but usually you have a nice stack at the first break ready to go deep into the tournament.

moose

Early in the tourney the blinds are so low I just play extra tight. Let the idiots self-destruct on each other and build the pot. Never limp in or raise unless you know that you won't be raised allin. I play my game when the pot is not raised allin preflop from late position only and only call the preflop allins with AA KK or AK sooted. At most by the end of the rebuy you should be down a couple hundred and if you caught a super premium hand you will have double or tripled up.

Even if I haven't caught a hand, after the rebuy period is over I find the maniacs don't know how to hang on to their chips and I usually double or triple up soon after the rebuy period ends. Plus if you've got a rep now of being a super tight player, if you loosen up right after the rebuy period, it helps you steal pots.

Keep an eye on the tourney pot and realize that if you rebuy more than a couple times that you will likely have to finish top 5 to finish much ahead.