When I started playing, I worried about being the sucker at the table. I worried about the money I was putting at stake. And I thought about tournament Hold-Em in relation to what I saw on television... buy-in, get your chips, live and die with them. Lose your chips, lose the tournament. Simple enough. I knew there were cash games and tourneys with add-ons and re-buys out there, but I wanted nothing to do with them until I got my feet under me & felt like I could compete in my friends’ – and my own – home games.
Good friend John Luther (West-Coast Johnny, Captain Responsibility) put it best when he started hosting games of his own. “When I go up against you, and I put you out, I want you to be out. I beat you down, I took your chips, you’re done.”
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this philosophy, nothing wrong with the basic home hold-em tourney structure. Except this... when you host a game, it is a social occasion as much as it is a hardcore poker competition. You might have people driving 30 or 40 miles to spend time with you, sometimes even bringing along munchies or drinkables for everyone. They’re there to have fun, and if they bust out in the first 10 hands, their evening is done. I bet most people reading this have been there. If not suffering the embarrassment of running a suicidal bluff into the nuts, or losing a brutal 2-outer for all your chips, on top of that your evening suddenly just got real short. Or maybe you’ve had to stick around & chill for 2 or 3 hours while your ride/car-pool bud continues to grind away, all the way into the payout.
As much satisfaction as there is in busting a buddy, or teaching the newbie a good lesson, this can backfire on you. Enough brutal beats and early evenings, and that player might choose to remove his bankroll from your game permanently. That is not good... not for friendship, poker, your poker friends’ chances to take his money in the future, or that player’s future chances to get even.
You want these people in your game. You want them to learn the game, become good competition, learn what you’ve learned, and grow the poker community. Frustration affects different people differently, and I want to suggest a way to ease into a game structure that can help give them a second chance.
Introduce re-buys into your home tournaments on a limited basis. Be very clear about the re-buy rules, and give everyone plenty of warning about your plans. Do NOT announce prior to shuffling up that ‘tonight, we’re gonna do re-buys!’... you will learn hard & fast how uncool that is if everyone’s there for a standard tourney. The primary reason you’re starting re-buys is to give early bust-outs that coveted 2nd chance, so start off light.
Announce ahead of time that 1 re-buy per player will be allowed for the first few blind levels... say 3 or 4 levels depending upon how fast you raise blinds, or another good method is to shut down the re-buys after the first break. After that, you’re cruising without a net. Any less, and it’s unlikely anyone’s going to bust out. Any more and you might be looking at a much longer night of poker than anyone was counting on. Remember, more chips added to the table means longer playing time.
It’s a good idea to provide the option of re-buying for the full buy-in $$ amount for a full starting stack, or half a buy-in for half as many chips. You might ask ‘what good does that do?’, coming back in with half a stack, but you’d be surprised. The very few times I’ve been at a table when somebody comes back in for half, the action actually gets pretty spicy if the timing is right. They might come back in for a stack that’s in the 12 – 20 big blinds range, and that makes it super-easy for them to push with a decent hand, or blow over the top of a standard raise & put others to a test they might not have counted on. Before you know it, they’re right back in it.
The other consideration, probably a good one to discuss with your fellow players, is how the re-buys will affect everyone’s play. Certainly it gives most players enough of a cushion to loosen up their play, particularly if they start to get short-stacked toward the end of the re-buy period. Your friend the rock might stupefy the table when he or she flips over a sick, sick bluff for a ton of chips. Far more common, tight players might be more inclined to call significant bets after the flop to chase 4-to-the-flush or open ended straight draws. If you & yours feel this constitutes a violation of the way the game should be played, chances are re-buys are not for you.
The fat financial incentive to re-buys is that they build the evening’s payout. Start with 10 players, 4 people pony up a 2nd buy-in after busting, and your payout has grown almost 50%! And after your players get more comfortable with the re-buy in your home game, consider expanding the option to more than 1 re-buy per player. Personally, I think the big benefit is giving players a chance to stay at the table & extend their evening.
Whether that’s because I like their company, or I just want to take more of their chips... depends on the player! Probably both.
