Rebuy tournaments offer players the opportunity to play in a tournament environment with what many call a creative freedom due to the knowledge that even if they are relieved of all their chips, they are still able to buy back into the tournament as long as they are within the allotted time to do so.
This tends to mean that the differences seen between the players at the tables become more noticable, with 3 main stances taken to the table in the bid to overcome their opponent.
1. Maniac / Loose
This style of play means that many players who adapt this strategy are more than willing to try to make a hand with everything that they are dealt, you will see a large number of hands that normally would not have seen a second look being played and quite often paying off for a player due to opponents not being able to place them on a hand.
The security of knowing that even if you lose all of their chips, they can rebuy and remain within the tournament simply means that players are a lot more willing to stake higher bets onto smaller strength hands.
If you find that your facing off against a player like this, you need to be very careful in your approach to the hand your playing because there is no way of knowing what they are holding in their pocket so even a low flop could cost you.
On the other hand, these are the players that you want to get the better of on a regular basis as these are the players who care little about the buy in fees they will have to cover as they strive to get a large chip stack to play with.
Exploit that desire and make sure you have the best hand and you could see yourself move into an early chip lead if you can keep hitting their at their time of weakness.
2. Tight/Aggressive
Seen as one of the most common within rebuy tournament play, the tight/aggressive approach means that players are willing to wait for a hand in which they are happy to play and then bet into the pot with increased amounts.
This means that when they get a hand, they are looking to counter the attack of the maniac/loose players at the table, trying to improve the value of the central pot in order to increase their chip count should they win the hand.
This sort of player tends to wait for a premium hand to which they would be happy to place their whole chip stack into.
Players like this should be noted and then caution used when entering into a pot with them as they are out to play with only a strong hand and then will overbet the pots to make you have to pay to stay within the hand.
If you can trap a player like this into a hand with a high strength hand yourself, its very likely that you will be able to take the opponents full stack from under their nose but as expressed before, they will be holding a hand they feel will win the pot so do not, at any point, look to make a bluff into this player or you could well find yourself heading to the rebuy booth yourself.
3. One buy in wonders
These are the players who have decided that they are only going to buy in to the tournament once, regardless of the opportunity being offered to have as many lives as you want within the allotted rebuy period.
These players exercise a very tight approach and if their hand is anything short of a premium hand, they are very unlikely to want to get involved in the action of the play.
Even more caution should be shown to a hand if this kind of player is getting involved as they are acting within the intention of thinking that the tournament is a regular, one life and your out style tournament, so they will have a hand.
This approach works for some players and not others as the time spent waiting for the right hand means that you see a lot of action pass and so the chips at your table flying about the felt.
Its very rare that a player who sticks purely to this approach reaches the final stages of the tournament due to the fact that their chip stacks tend to fizzle out with the blinds and antes coming into play at a later stage, meaning that their time to wait for a strong hand soon becomes less and less, forcing them to have to play what they can.
Rebuy tournaments can become very exciting for a wide number of players and the chance to earn a prize pool that is generally bigger than a regular style tournament means that many are drawn into the field.
The best approach that you can exercise within this form of tournament would be to be a well rounded player, switching between stances and approaches on a regular basis.
Get the alteration of your game seamless and you could well find yourself heading to the final table with a hefty stack.
