Joining Re-buy Poker Tournaments

Playing in online poker tournaments is undoubtedly the best way to gain skill and experience and also win big money. There are numerous poker tournaments available on the Internet, and online poker rooms are consistently coming up with new types of tournaments for the growing online poker population. One of the more popular poker tournaments is the re-buy tournament.

A re-buy tournament allows a poker player to "re-buy' chips when he goes broke and re-enter the tournament. The ability to re-buy chips and get back into the action makes the re-buy tournament a popular tourney among fast-paced, action-loving players.

A re-buy tourney usually starts with an initial buy-in amount. For example, the buy-in is $20 for 1,500 chips. You can then re-buy another 1,500 chips so that your chip total is now 3,000. If your chips stack goes down to 1,500 or less, you can re-buy again and again until the first break comes, by which time you are no longer allowed to buy more chips.

On the first break you are no longer allows to re-buy, but you can get an "add-on" to add more chips to your stack. After this, nobody is no longer allowed to re-buy or add-on and the play proceeds until a winner is selected.

The good thing about re-buy tournaments is that the prize pool increases exponentially. As the players continue buying more chips, the pot size increases and the players become more aggressive in chasing the pot.

If you joined a re-buy tournament, you might be tempted to play loose and go all-in when you hit the flop. This go-for-broke attitude can sometimes be profitable if played correctly and you get lucky with your play. Many players have this attitude in re-buy tournaments, thinking that they have nothing to lose by playing extremely loose.

Another strategy in a re-buy tournament is to sit with a large stack at the beginning of the tourney and wait for opponents to go all-in with poor hands. Just make sure you re-buy immediately at the start of the tourney so that you have a powerful leverage against your opponents.

Always take advantage of the add-on opportunity especially if you have not taken the opportunity to re-buy and you are not the chip leader. As much as possible, don't re-buy chips more than four times unless it is absolutely necessary.

Re-buy tournaments are very fun and exciting during the early rounds as players play aggressively and go for broke, relying on the re-buy opportunity to stay in contention. These early rounds, however, are not the most crucial parts of the tournament. The serious tournament play begins after the first break.

To play this type of tournament successfully, you have to play tight and aggressive to defeat the "maniacs" who survived the early rounds. These players usually don't get past the first rounds after the break since their styles of play that served them well before the break will become detrimental to them. Just be patient and wait for the maniacs to go all-in with their poor hands, then pounce for the kill using your superior hand.