7/27/2019 Foxwoods Rebuy Tournament (Part 1).doc

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Rebuy tournaments are my favorite types of tournaments to play. I am not much of agambler away from poker; I rarely play table games like craps or blackjack and I never bet onsports. My tournament style, and overall poker style for that matter is more of a tight aggressivestyle, but during rebuy tournaments I use a different strategy that is fun to play and given me agreat deal of success in the past.

Many people have different strategies for rebuy tournaments, and I think that peopleshould use whatever is comfortable for them. I have tried different strategies from not playing anyhands during the rebuy period, to playing and raising almost every hand during the rebuy period,and everything in-between. The strategy I have found to be most fun and most successful, hasbeen a hyper-aggressive style. I use the first few hands to make it known that I am ready togamble, and it always seems to get the table to cooperate with me. Whenever I am playing in arebuy tournament, I am always willing to make at least five rebuys. Getting a big stack early canbe a huge advantage, as I will explain later. This hyper-aggressive style sometimes works inregular tournaments, but the problem is if you lose, you are out of the tournament, whereas in arebuy, if you lose you can get right back to square one by rebuying. After I show the table mywillingness to gamble and have the entire table gambling themselves, I continue my chatter butease back on being the maniac that they all think I am. I recently played in a $150 buy in rebuytournament at Foxwoods in Connecticut, with $60 rebuys and 186 participants. I will explainsome key situations and important concepts, which ultimately lead me to winning the tournament

and taking home a first place prize of $14,000.

The rebuy hour was one hour long and had two levels, thirty minutes each. During thefirst level, the blinds were $25-25, and in the second level, the blinds were $25-50. We startedwith $500 in chips, and for $60 in real money you could get $500 more chips. I always rebuywhen the tournament begins. The reason for this is that you always want to have as many chipsas possible, so if you find yourself in the position to double up you can have a big stack. Thereason for my hyper-aggressive style during the rebuy period is that I am trying to obtain thebiggest stack possible. As soon as I sat down, I began to chat with everyone and tried to create apositive atmosphere. A few hands into the tournament I managed to get all my chips in preflopwith KK, and I was called by two players, one with A 10 off suit, and the other with Q9 off. Afterthe flop was AQQ, I failed to improve on the turn and river and I immediately rebought two moretimes. (In rebuy tournaments, when you lose all of your chips you have the option to rebuy twotimes.)

Instead of complaining about the bad beat and going on tilt, I did the exact opposite. Icontinued to talk a lot and keep the table gambling and having fun. A few important hands cameup during the rebuy period were created because of the gambling style I portrayed during the firsthalf-hour or so. With the blinds at $25-50, I went all in early position with A6 suited. I would nottypically play this hand in early position. However, I was trying to build a stack and get calls fromweak hands. To my surprise, after getting three callers, the hands were turned over and I had thebest hand! I was up against KJ off suite, and two players had KQ off suite. The flop came downace high and I now had an above average $4k stack. Once I reach a certain chip stack, I tend totighten up a lot, and my goal for this tournament was to have a 7500 stack by the end of therebuy period. Luckily, I had two other situations that put my stack over $10k. The first hand was

just a lucky situation that I happened to be on the right end of. Four of us got all in preflop andmy JJ was somehow the favorite against 1010, and 2 players who both had AK off suit. After this

hand, I was around $8k in chips and one of the tournament chip leaders. At this point, I was notplaying the hyper-aggressive style anymore, but the table kept giving me action because theythought I was in every pot with nothing. A few hands before the rebuy period ended I limped inwith 33 from middle position after two players limped in front of me, and the flop was 732 rainbow.One of the early position limpers made a weak bet into the pot, and I made a small raise. Heinstantly went all in and flipped over his J7 proudly. I took the last few hands off and finished thefirst hour with about $11k in chips, making me one of the top five chip leaders.