Re-buy tournament strategy
Re-buy tournament strategy is a unique one in that the main goal after the first hour of this style of tournament is to have the most chips at the table. If you can accomplish the goal of having more chips at your table than that of any other table in the tournament then you will be more successful looking at the big picture of the tournament. The reason for getting the most chips and forcing the most re-buys at your table is to have a big chip stack after the re-buy period. Even if you don’t have a big stack after the first hour of the tournament you can slowly chip away and take chips from the players who were lucky in the first hour of the tournament.
If you aren’t running well early in this style of tournament because you are moving your chips in far too much then you should take the pedal off the medal for a little while and tone down. Mainly, because if you are burning through money at a rapid rate and putting more money in to the tournament than what a minimum cash is worth than that isn’t going to make you money and it isn’t the best strategy. What you want to do is to either be an aggressive player in the first hour or be a passive player, and pick spots to grow your stack.
Progressing through a re-buy tournament isn’t hard if there are a lot of chips at your table and you have a moderate stack. Generally, the blinds are small and the stacks are big. So, playing passive in early position at the table and more aggressive from the cutoff position or button is the way to go. Playing your big pairs and trapping opponents from out of position can win you big pots at the middle stage of the tournament. Meaning if you are in the big blind and flat call a raise before the flop with a big pair, and a small card unconnected board hits, you can take down a big pot if your opponent makes a play from in position.
When players start to get weeded out in the ladder stages of re-buy tournaments there is a lot of play and less luck involved. This is simply because the stacks are big compared to blind levels. The best way to approach this style of tournament in the deep stages of it cannot really be explained or defined as one strategy. A strategy is to play tight and wait for big hands to play, but a better one is to play aggressive in position. Almost every unopened pot at the late stage of the tournament you should open and continue aggression by betting the flop. If you can apply constant pressure on your opponent then eventually they will get fed up with your aggression and push all their chips in the middle. That is the point in time where hopefully you will have a better hand and call them.
